Snitch!
by Al
Summary: In London's seedy criminal underworld, two old enemies have become partners in crime, but the wizarding world is out to disrupt Harry's none too peaceful existence. Guns, car chases, wizards, sex, slash, Slut!Draco and drug busts abound in a fast paced r
1. Indecent Proposals.

SNITCH!  
  
A/N  
  
Snitch had its genesis during the long, long period of writer's block that I suffered during the writing of Dracaena Draco, and was prompted in part by a lively discussion over at e-groups (now, much to my annoyance, consumed by Yahoo, without telling anyone ... but I digress). It is NOT the sequel to Dracaena Draco ... that is coming soon.  
  
Snitch (the reason for this title should become apparent) is set two years from now, four years after the canon is scheduled to end, making the characters 23 or 24.  
  
A WARNING!  
  
The rating is, as usual, justified. This would be rated 15 in the UK, but I'm putting it as R to be on the safe side. This story also contains considerably more explicit language and situations than my previous works. And there are gay characters in it, and the implication of slash. If you find this in any way offensive, I beg you not to read on. Out of respect for any younger readers (I know I must have some) I really do recommend you stick with Dracaena Draco and its sequel, The Time of Trial, which are both normal fanfics. I respect you guys enough to be sure you will keep to your word, and therefore I feel I can post this here. Please do not prove me wrong!  
  
Of course, if you enjoy the story, then please leave me a review ... they keep me writing, and constructive criticism ... hell, anything but flames, are deeply appreciated.  
  
PART ONE. INDECENT PROPOSALS.  
  
Bleary-eyed, tired, yet sated and happy, Draco wandered round the kitchen in his underwear, collecting the fixings for their late lunch. Even though it was now well into January, and Christmas was, in fact, long over, he still had more than enough leftover turkey to get through.  
  
He might be a vegetarian now, but his friends certainly were not ... and because Draco considered himself the sort of person who accepted the lifestyle choices of others these days, he had quite happily bought and cooked an enormous eighteen pound bird, despite the fact that defrosting the damn thing in the bath had taken hours ... and every time he looked at it he got tearful and needed to have a lie-down.  
  
He hummed a song to himself as he worked ... 'Hard Day's Night' by the Beatles. If there was one thing Draco knew these days, it was music. His job as a music critic for a large Muggle magazine had taken him all round the world; Australia, the US, Thailand (he had especially liked Thailand) ... he had twice met the living God that was Paul McCartney, he had eaten in the most exclusive restaurants, and bedded some of the most beautiful people. And he was still only twenty-four.  
  
He unscrewed the lid off the jar of cranberry sauce, and spooned the contents into a mixing bowl. Then he added mayonnaise, and whipped the whole until it was pink and creamy. This was what the servants had always done for him ... back in the old life.  
  
He could hear stirrings from the bedroom. His companion of the previous night was waking up. Hurriedly, he opened the bread bin, and flung a large white bloomer onto the board, then set to cutting it with the electric carving knife Marcus had given him. He spread it liberally with butter, and was just arranging the slices of turkey on top when the bedroom door opened, and his partner emerged, blinking in the afternoon sunshine that was pouring in through the enormous picture windows.  
  
"Lovely day," said Draco, spreading his cranberry and mayonnaise mixture over the turkey.  
  
"Lovely sex," said Julian, smiling at him. He was wearing a slate grey vest over matching pyjama bottoms. Slowly, he crossed the open plan flat to the window, and stared out across the Thames, the icy waters glistened in the weak sun. The tide was going out and the barges were marooned on the mud flats. The dome of St Paul's rose above the city blocks ... over to the right was the Tower and over to the left, the new Tate, the Wheel, and the wobbly bridge, which Draco had run across several times, just to see what it was like. You couldn't buy a view like that, although Draco had managed it ... obviously. In the summer, it was rather pleasant to sit out on the balcony with a few bottles of something strong, a few 'special' friends, and an ounce or two of hash, and just while away the hours with Moby playing on the stereo.  
  
"I rather enjoyed it myself," said Draco, arranging the turkey sandwiches on a plate, and carrying them over to the dining table. "But then ... I always do. You need feeding up, Julian ... you have very bony elbows."  
  
"I never noticed," said Julian, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels.  
  
"Well, they weren't prodding you in the buttocks all night," said Draco. He strode back into the kitchenette ... took the coffee pot off its ring, and brought it over.  
  
"I adore your view," said Julian, sitting down, and pouring himself black coffee. This done, he began to roll the first cigarette of the day. "I could happily live here."  
  
"Eat ... we need energy," grinned Draco, spreading a napkin across his lap.  
  
"Then we can have another go," said Julian.  
  
"We ought to read the papers first," said Draco. "Then sex."  
  
"Sod the papers," said Julian, sipping his coffee. "You not eating, darling?" Draco shook his head.  
  
"I don't ... you know that ..."  
  
"Must have slipped my mind," he said, stuffing a sandwich almost whole into his mouth. "You really should try these," he said, spraying the table with bits of turkey. "They're truly divine! A bit like your left thigh."  
  
Draco was eyeing him across the table again. He could feel one of Julian's feet running up and down his leg, and it was making him shiver all over. He picked up the paper.  
  
"I have a very bad idea," said Julian, standing up. He had a very upper crust accent, which made him sound a bit like a horse. It probably came from his days at Eton. Draco had never told his boyfriend that he had been to boarding school as well. Actually ... he had only been his boyfriend since New Year's Eve ... before that he had been a dancer ... a very good one, too.  
  
"Marcus will be here soon," said Draco. "You ought to meet him. We ought not to wear me out too much. He's brilliant in be ..."  
  
But Julian had scrambled forwards, and clapped his hand across Draco's mouth. "Say nothing," he said. "How cold is it outside?"  
  
"Brass monkeys, I should imagine," said Draco.  
  
"And the hot tub on the balcony ... how hot does it get?"  
  
"Very hot?" suggested Draco, grinning wickedly ...  
  
"You'd better go and switch it on then," he said. "Or you might just find I get carried away," he added, running his hand slowly down Draco's chest, making him squirm.  
  
"I might just do that," Draco whispered.  
  
**************  
  
"Mr. Potter?"  
  
Harry opened his eyes, blinked heavily, forgetting whatever dream he had been having instantly. There were two men standing in the office, black-suited, severe looking men, in sunglasses, which struck Harry as odd, as it was midwinter.  
  
"Can I help you?" he asked.  
  
"Your secretary said to go straight in, sir," said one of them, who was holding a black leather briefcase. "She said it would be okay. We didn't mean to disturb you ..."  
  
Harry shook his head, partly to dispel their fears, and partly to dispel the haunting images in his head. He delved into the pocket of his suit jacket, and withdrew a packet of cigarettes. He pulled one out, and offered the pack to both of them.  
  
"Thanks ... I ... don't," said one of them, shaking his head.  
  
"I've just given up," said the other. "New Year's resolution."  
  
"You don't mind if I do?" asked Harry. Both men shuffled their feet, as if nervous. A TV on a wall-mounted bracket was showing highlights of the weekend's cup games, including, much to Harry's chagrin; Fulham getting slaughtered by Manchester United.  
  
"Go ahead, sir," said one of them.  
  
"Thanks," said Harry, pulling a cigarette from the packet, lighting it, and taking a long puff. "Sit down, please, gentlemen. Don't stand on ceremony."  
  
The two men both looked to one another, as though they were seeking reassurance. Then they sat down in front of the desk. Harry crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, to be better able to see the telly. The other men watched him expectantly.  
  
"I could have played professionally, you know," he said, after a moment's silence had past. Harry liked to let his clients sit in silence ... something to do with building tension; he'd read that in one of those self help manuals. It made people more inclined to agree with him.  
  
"Sorry, sir?"  
  
"Football, soccer," said Harry. "Or something very much like it," he went on. "Anyway ... I have a feeling neither of you came here to talk sport with me," he took another, long puff on his cigarette, and expelled the smoke through his mouth in a thin plume ... wraiths of grey, second-hand smoke, dissipating into the air before him, and making the other men look like he was seeing them through a cloud of dry ice. Very atmospheric, he thought.  
  
"No," said one of them. "We came to offer you a deal."  
  
"I like the sound of it already," said Harry, staring at them over the rims of his spectacles. "May I have your names, gentlemen?"  
  
"Jack, Jack Bones," said one of them. "This is my financial advisor, Morris Cardwell."  
  
"Bones and Cardwell," smiled Harry, writing the names down on a post-it note, and sticking it to the underside of the desk. "And what can I do for you?"  
  
"We represent a concern of ... investors, looking to move into the club business in London. We already have a large property just off the Charing Cross Road."  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows. Charing Cross was a part of London that he tended to steer well clear of, for reasons that were very personal indeed. He had no real cause to ... he would not be recognised down there anymore. He could walk right in, and nobody would know him for what he had once been ...  
  
"Carry on," he said. Over ... it's all over, he thought, and wistful thinking won't put it back the way it was.  
  
"It's called the Cauldron," said Bones. "We've been doing it up for about a year now. Got it all nice inside. It's a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of modern urban life," he sounded as though he was repeating chunks of a brochure. "A cosmopolitan yet relaxed retreat for the connoisseur who knows what he wants, where he can get a cocktail and a decent burger, and also partake of some of our fine entertainment."  
  
"That kind of club?" said Harry. "Or is it an American theme restaurant ... with line dancers pretending to be from the Deep South, who are, in reality trying to scrape together enough cash for a RADA scholarship?" It is worth mentioning at this point that Harry's conception of the Southern US did not extend much beyond moonshine, people called Zeke and Huck Finn books.  
  
Bones shook his head. "Oh no ... very definitely a club. It's very discreet of course. Membership cards, but no names ... dancers six nights a week. Theme nights, that kind of thing. Extra services on demand. We have some lovely girls as well. You should see some of them."  
  
Harry smiled. "Sounds nice," he said. "What type of clientele are we looking at?"  
  
"Regular punters," said Bones. "City gents, that kind of thing. Tourists too."  
  
"And the girls?"  
  
"Yugoslavian," said Bones, "mostly. They'll do anything for a tenner."  
  
Harry smiled, politely, though privately more than a little disgusted by their attitude. Of course, his own clubs, all six of them, were just as bad ...  
  
"We were wondering if you'd be interested in investing?" said Cardwell, leaning forwards. He was drumming his fingers on the edge of the desk in a gesture Harry found deeply annoying. "A small down payment, of course ... then, say, a fifty percent stake in the business ... a cut of all monies earned, obviously ..."  
  
"Goes without saying," he said. "Well, Gentlemen ... it certainly sounds as though you have an interesting little earner here. I shall have to come down and see it."  
  
The music was thumping outside in the gym, seeping underneath the door, causing Harry's polished, matte black desk to vibrate perceptibly. Bones seemed to relax.  
  
"When can you come down?"  
  
"First I need to check you out," said Harry, drumming his fingers on the desk. Bones shuffled his feet nervously, betraying what Harry had suspected. "After all, I can't just lend my support to any old club. This needs to be legitimate, above board, on the books. I'm quite sure you understand," Harry stubbed out his cigarette.  
  
"Of course," said Bones. "Goes without saying ... a respectable businessman like you. Nothing sleazy."  
  
Harry nodded his head. "I'm glad we feel mutually," he said. "Are you quite sure you don't want a cigarette?"  
  
Bones shook his head. "Perfectly happy as I am ... thank you, Sir."  
  
"Well ... said Harry. He pulled from inside his Armani jacket a silver cigarette case, and set it down on the desk in front of him. Bones eyed it suspiciously ... and Harry wondered why he would be worried about a mere cigarette case.  
  
"Tomorrow night?" he suggested. "I'd need to bring some of my boys along."  
  
"By all means," said Bones. "Here's our card. Six o'clock?"  
  
"Make it half past," said Harry, tucking the laminated card into his breast pocket. "I have rather a lot of business on tomorrow."  
  
"Till half six, then," said Bones. Both men stood up, and Harry rose to shake their hands in return. As soon as the office door shut, he pressed the intercom button.  
  
"Put a tail on them, find Jackson, and make him follow them," he said. "I want to know where they're going, and what they're doing. I want a report every hour too. Give him my mobile number."  
  
"Right away, Mr. Potter."  
  
Harry released the button, picked up his mobile, and dialled a number. It took a while for the person on the other end to pick up ... but finally he did.  
  
"What's the matter?" the other man's voice was breathless, as though he'd just run a marathon. "Can't it wait? I'm a little tied up right now!"  
  
"How many guns do you have?" asked Harry, drumming his fingers on the desk.  
  
The other man sighed. "I dunno," he said. There was a thudding sound, and the sound of a female voice protesting about something.  
  
A few seconds later, he came back on the line. "About five," he said. "Berettas ... with silencers."  
  
"Have them brought over, where are you ... Kensington?"  
  
"Fulham ... look, I'm very busy," said the other man.  
  
"Now!" snapped Harry. "Is Leticia with you?"  
  
"Actually, Harry ... it's Leticia who's holding me up," the other voice gasped.  
  
"Well, I want you here," said Harry. "It's entirely your business who you want to fuck, but on my time, keep it to a minimum ... who else is there?"  
  
"Nobody!"  
  
"Draco?"  
  
"He's back at the flat in Poplar ... entertaining ... the guns are there ... look, Harry. I'd need to go across town. Can't you put Snake on it?"  
  
"Snake's in Manchester," said Harry. "Look ... it'll have to be you."  
  
"But, I don't want to go there ... Draco's a faggot."  
  
Harry sighed. "I know you don't approve of people who enjoy an alternative lifestyle," he said. "I'll need him here, too ... you'll have to bring him along."  
  
"I'm not having that pouf in my Beemer!"  
  
"Shut your trap, Meakes ... get across town, now. I want you both here by five," snapped Harry. "Make him bring the guns."  
  
************  
  
The winter light was fading fast as Meakes pulled his brand new, black BMW into a space outside the converted warehouse block where Draco lived. His metallic blue Lotus Elise was parked in its customary place. He'd had the convertible's roof replaced with a hard top after some local kids had slashed the leather. More fool him, thought Meakes, keeping a soft top in central London was asking for trouble, in his opinion.  
  
Lights were on inside the flat. Even though it was January the eighth, Draco had still not taken his Christmas lights down. Meakes pushed open the door, smiled at the guard on duty at the front desk, and ran up the stairs.  
  
The front door to Draco's penthouse was slightly ajar, and from within, Meakes could hear the sounds of people making very merry indeed. He paused. It would be bloody awful if he went in there and found ... he rang the bell.  
  
"Oh fuck!"  
  
And then ... "Just a minute ... please!"  
  
He heard someone else laugh ... and another voice, a man's voice. Meakes, who had been raised in a staunch, Thatcherite household, and had therefore been a low-key bigot his entire life, felt his stomach turn.  
  
"Must you go?"  
  
"Might be important," Meakes recognised the voice as Draco's.  
  
He heard footsteps, and then the door opened a fraction. Draco poked his head round. He was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe, tied loosely around his waist. His shoulder length, platinum blond hair was all over the place, and his face red. He shot Meakes a glance of pure hatred. There was ice in those grey eyes.  
  
"Why the fuck do you always have to spoil my fun?" he groaned.  
  
Meakes smiled, maliciously. "It's bad luck to keep your decorations up after Twelfth Night," he said. "Consider me your first bit of bad luck."  
  
"What's the next?"  
  
"Harry wants you."  
  
"You'd better come in," scowled Draco. "You'll have to wait a minute ... I was in the middle of some friends."  
  
Meakes followed Draco into the flat, and kicked the door shut. "What is it he wants?" he asked. "Coke ... hash? E?"  
  
"Guns," said Meakes. "He wants the bloody guns."  
  
"They're in a black plastic sack, in the kitchen," said Draco. "Look ... I'll be with you in a minute. I've just got to finish something."  
  
To Meakes' disgust, he slipped off his bathrobe ... perhaps unsurprisingly he had not a stitch on underneath, and disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door shut.  
  
A moment, later, he heard someone moaning, followed by a shout of, "Hey ... look at my magic wand!"  
  
He shook his head, and walked across the flat to Draco's kitchenette. For someone who was 'inferior' to him in the hierarchy, Draco didn't do too badly. There was a round, white leather sofa ... a huge flat screen TV hanging on the wall ... a Bang & Olufsen sound system, surrounded by piles of CDs ... freebies that Draco got from the magazines he wrote for; his legitimate, public face. There was a glass-topped coffee table, strewn with magazines ... back issues of 'Interiors,' 'NME,' 'Rolling Stone' and 'Men's Health' ... track lighting, halogen spots, and polished wood floors. Meakes made do with a fleapit in an old Victorian house in Camden Town, and his only CDs were bootlegged down the market by his mate, Ned. And he'd been done in for not getting a TV licence.  
  
Sure enough, the black plastic sack was buried at the back of one of Draco's overstocked cupboards. There were jars of exotic spices ... bags of dried fruit, brown rice, and enough packets of Cup-A-Soup to keep an army marching for a week. Meakes wondered vaguely what Draco actually ate. None of that macrobiotic crap looked nutritious enough, and there was no sign of any meat, anywhere. He pulled out the sack, and emptied the contents onto the floor. There were five Beretta pistols ... silencers to fit them, and several boxes of bullets. There was also a small plastic bag full of what looked like the model trees kids put on Hornby railways. Meakes, of course, knew what it really was. A malicious smile on his face, he unscrewed the lid of a jar of curry powder, and tipped the contents in. That'd give the bastard a shock!  
  
The bedroom door opened, and Draco came back out. He was in the process of pulling on a black v-neck T-shirt with '$1,000,000' picked out across the chest in gold. He blew whoever was still in the room a kiss, and then turned to face Meakes.  
  
"What's with the shirt?" asked Meakes. "This is a business ... not a rave."  
  
"You have to have a million dollars to have me," said Draco, doing up his trousers. "Did you get the guns?"  
  
Meakes nodded. "What's with all the vegetable crap?" he asked.  
  
"I've gone vegetarian," said Draco. "Didn't Harry mention it to you?"  
  
"Why on earth would you want to do that?"  
  
"Makes me taste nicer," said Draco. "And it makes me less aggressive too ... no toxins swirling around my bloodstream," as he said this, he unscrewed the cap off a bottle of Stolichnaya, and poured himself a generous measure. "Can I entreat you to some?"  
  
Meakes shook his head. "I'm driving," he said.  
  
"Course you are," said Draco. "Look ... I've got to sort out something," he downed the vodka in one gulp. "Sure I can't get you something ... Advocat ... Bailey's?"  
  
"Got any proper drinks?"  
  
Draco nodded. "Got some beer somewhere. Anyway ... I'll be right back."  
  
He slipped back into the bedroom. "Look ... Marcus, Julian ... have some vodka or something. There's a microwave moussaka in the fridge if you get hungry. This won't take long."  
  
He came back out, smiling at Meakes. "Okay ... you take the guns then."  
  
Meakes picked up the bag with the guns in ... and followed Draco out of the flat, pulling the door closed.  
  
"Which car did you bring?" asked Draco, leading him down the stairs, and fumbling in the pockets of his trousers for his packet of rolling papers.  
  
"The Beemer," sighed Meakes. They walked out across the foyer, and Draco smiled at the security guard, who was reading a copy of Penthouse stuffed inside the Daily Telegraph.  
  
Meakes walked round to the driver's door, opened it, and climbed in. Draco ran his hand along the roof. "New?" he asked.  
  
"X reg," said Meakes. "Only got her last Thursday ... so don't you go giving my upholstery anything."  
  
Draco sighed as he closed the door, and put his seatbelt on. "Arthur ... you can't get AIDS from sitting on a seat," he said. "How many times do I need to tell you? Anyway ... I've had tests and I'm fine."  
  
"Just, don't try anything funny," said Meakes, starting the engine, and flicking on the headlights.  
  
"Why would I try anything with you?" said Draco. "You have the most supremely unattractive arse I have ever seen. You should work out or something. Hasn't Harry offered you membership?"  
  
Meakes shrugged. "I decided against it. I'm not letting them queer gym instructors get their kicks off of Arthur Meakes. Anyway ... Raquel likes my buttocks."  
  
"Oh, please," said Draco. "One ... Raquel is a slut ...and two; any man who wanted to get off with you would have to be blind or desperate."  
  
"Be quiet," snapped Meakes.  
  
"And there's only one gay instructor," said Draco. "His name's Jonathan ... he's the one with the ponytail. I've had him ... twice ..."  
  
"Shut it!"  
  
"... on the exercise bike," Draco went on. "Well ... it was after hours, and Harry had gone home ..."  
  
He didn't hear Meakes' next words, though it sounded like he said, 'fucking faggot.'  
  
"I've no objection to homophobes, per se," said Draco. "I just wish they'd be homophobic behind closed doors, where I can't see them. Mind if I smoke?"  
  
Meakes eased the car out onto Southwark Road. The traffic was moving swiftly, and it looked like they would have to wait a while for a gap. Draco, taking Meakes' silence as a yes, set to rolling a cigarette. "I'm thinking of upgrading, you know," he said.  
  
"To what?"  
  
"I fancy a Lexus," said Draco. "One of those sports ones ... with the funny rear lights ... disc brakes and alloys. Leather interior. Beautiful. My mate Darren has one. Actually ... he imports them. Off the books, from Germany."  
  
"You know a fair bit about cars," said Meakes.  
  
"Straight people don't have a monopoly on cars," said Draco, lighting his rollup. "I like playing sports too, and I could drink you under the table anytime ... as long as you're drinking Bacardi and Coke."  
  
Meakes shook his head.  
  
"Oh yeah, I forget ... one mistimed snog with another bloke is enough for you," said Draco. "So ... what should I go for ... two point five litre, stick shift?"  
  
************  
  
Harry stood at the window and watched as Arthur drove up and down the street, looking for a parking space. Finally, he found one, even though it meant blocking the service entrance to the supermarket opposite. He saw Draco climb sedately from the car, and noted Arthur was carrying the bag with the guns in. They crossed the road ... an old Volkswagen Golf purred by, headlights piercing the gloom of the dank London side street. They disappeared under the porch.  
  
Harry turned on his heels, walked back across the office, and out of the door. His secretary was sitting at her brushed aluminium desk, on the phone to somebody. A plate glass window ahead afforded a view of the gym, where about twenty men and women were working out to Steps, supervised by beefy instructors in vests. Music videos that did not necessarily correspond to the track playing (A Deeper Shade Of Blue) were flashing across the TV screens.  
  
Harry walked down the spiral staircase leading to the foyer ... where there were posters framed on the walls, advertising his many business ventures, nightclubs, and five other gyms across London had been raking in the money since he had set up his first club at the age of eighteen ... and now, merely four years on ... he was one of the most powerful men in London ... and had almost, but not quite, completely forgotten about his past.  
  
Sometimes he still thought about it. Especially when he saw Draco. Draco had been expelled the same time as he had ... but Harry had not seen him for two years afterwards, until one day in 1998, he had come looking for a job ... his family had disowned him, and he had run away.  
  
As for the others ... they were just vague shapes at the back of his mind. None of them had stood by him ... and so he had left, abandoned his life, and what little family he had left ... and returned to living in a state of limbo, suspended between the two worlds, Magical and Muggle.  
  
Draco and Arthur were standing outside the doors, waiting to be let in. Harry pressed a button on the wall to open them.  
  
"Evening," he said. "Follow me please?"  
  
The other men followed him upstairs, passing a couple of female punters who were just leaving as they went. Upon catching sight of the gym, Draco let his imagination off its leash.  
  
"Stop drooling," snapped Harry, opening the door to his office. "Hold my calls, Stella," he barked at the secretary.  
  
"What if your girlfriend calls?"  
  
"Fuck her," said Harry, ushering the others into his office, and closing the door. "Take a seat," he said.  
  
"What's this about?" asked Draco, flopping down onto the sofa. Harry turned off the television.  
  
"Drink, gentlemen?"  
  
"What have you got?" asked Draco.  
  
"Anything," said Harry, opening his mini-bar. "Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi, Bollinger."  
  
"You couldn't open the Bollinger?"  
  
Harry frowned. "Actually, I was saving that."  
  
"I'll have a Smirnoff then," said Draco. Harry fished out one of the bottles, opened it, and handed it to him.  
  
"Arthur?"  
  
"Beer, please?"  
  
Harry tossed him a can of Stella, and took one himself. Draco sipped his cocktail happily.  
  
"Got the guns?" asked Harry.  
  
Arthur handed him the bag, and Harry tipped them out onto the desk. "They're in good nick," he said. "Spit and polish, eh Draco?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"Loaded?"  
  
Both men nodded.  
  
"Good," Harry walked round behind the desk, and sat down behind it. "Smoke, anyone?"  
  
Draco shook his head ... so did Arthur. Harry lit up anyway. "So," he said. "I expect you're wondering why I dragged you both in here."  
  
Draco nodded. "I was ... um, busy."  
  
"He was shagging," said Arthur.  
  
Harry looked disapproving. "I'm all for sex," he said. "In as many different places as possible ... but sometimes, Draco, I wonder how you find the energy. Anyway ... I rather think it's time we wrapped up the Montefiore account. Don't you?"  
  
"Montefiore?" asked Draco.  
  
"He owns a small exotic food business. He imports goods from the Middle East, falafel, hummus and stuff, sells it on to health food shops. There's a market amongst the Knightsbridge set," he went on. "I gather Harrods has gone to him on occasion."  
  
"That's right over our heads, surely," said Draco. "What are you planning ... are we blackmailing Al Fayed?"  
  
"That crook ... no," said Harry, smiling. "Though it would be nice," his head was filled with sudden visions of Harrods shop front ... except the green and gold awnings had Harry's written on them. "We're blackmailing dear old Monty."  
  
"What's he done?" asked Draco, sipping his drink. Meakes shifted his weight on the sofa uncomfortably. He had always been Harry's second ... until Draco came along, and then he had found himself being pushed to one side. Harry increasingly confided in Draco, instead of him. Meakes had the suspicion they were quite possibly shagging each another.  
  
"He made the mistake of borrowing a small sum of money off me," said Harry. "Call it, an investment ... and I know how much couscous you eat, Draco. I thought it'd be wise to have a stake in the business. Montefiore thinks not ... he also wants to keep the money. Our job tonight, is to convince the old sod that he really wants to give us the money back."  
  
**************  
  
Darkness had long since fallen as the Vauxhall Carlton saloon that they used for such operations drew up outside a poky terrace in Clapham. Montefiore's elderly red car was parked on the opposite side of the road. The harsh, orange glare of a nearby streetlight cast long shadows across the street.  
  
The four men sat in the car for some minutes, watching the house. Lights were on in most of the windows ... and there appeared to be people moving about.  
  
Without a word, Harry removed his gun from the inside pocket of his jacket, and clicked a new magazine into place.  
  
"How much?" asked Meakes.  
  
"Two and a half grand," said Harry. "Outstanding. He had till November to pay me. Then, I told him, we'll send in the big boys."  
  
"Did you?" asked Andy, the driver, who was sitting in the front seat, his hand on the gear stick, ready for a quick getaway. As an evasive driver, he was unsurpassed in all London, which was, of course, why Harry had hired him.  
  
Harry shook his head. "Nah," he said. "It was Christmas ... after all. The man has kids, too."  
  
"Very generous of you," said Andy.  
  
"Call me, good old Father Christmas," grinned Harry. "Are we ready, boys?"  
  
They walked up to the front door, Harry in the middle, Draco on the left, and Meakes on the right, their feet tapping on the slick paving slabs. It was at moments like these that both Harry and Draco felt a tingle of anticipation surge through their blood.  
  
Harry rapped three times on the door. It was opened almost immediately, and Harry was just about to force his way in, when he had to drop his gaze about three feet, where he found a small child of indeterminate sex looking up at him.  
  
"Ah," he said. "Is Daddy in?"  
  
"He's in the kitchen," said the child. "I'll go and get him."  
  
Draco sighed. "Always with the bloody children," he said. "They must know you're coming, Harry."  
  
"Be quiet," snapped Harry.  
  
"For once in your life, wouldn't you like to be able to barge into a house, and scream those immortal lines?"  
  
"What ... this is a fucking robbery ... everyone on the floor?"  
  
"I was thinking more of ... hello madam, I've come to read your meter ... is your husband in?" said Draco. "I mean ... whoever heard of the debt collectors having to wait on the fucking doorstep, freezing their nuts off, for two and a half grand. Guy fucking Ritchie couldn't have directed it better."  
  
Harry spun round. "You really aren't very attached to your reproductive system, are you, Malfoy?" he spat. "One more cheap jibe out of you, and your hand will be waving goodbye to its best friend."  
  
"One more cheap knob gag, Potter, and I'll force you to become my sex slave. You're quite obviously gagging for it. Anyway ... it's common knowledge I've had more sex than you've had hot dinners."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"Who would have thought it ... Harry Potter ... a complete slut! I could keep you in my flat, feed you crackers and have my wicked way with you!"  
  
Stefano Montefiore appeared in the hallway at this point. His face fell as he caught sight of the three men standing on the doorstep.  
  
"Good evening, Stefano," beamed Harry. "Might we come in for a few moments?"  
  
Montefiore nodded. Harry stepped over the threshold, and wiped his feet on the doormat. "Nice place you've got here," he said, in a low tone of voice. Draco kicked the front door shut.  
  
"I don't have the money," said Montefiore, wringing his hands and taking a step backwards. Cheesy Euro-pop was blaring out of a stereo somewhere else in the house. "I cannot get you the money. I must, please, have five more days. Then you may come back."  
  
"I can't wait five more days," snarled Harry, reaching into the pocket of his jacket, feeling the reassuring bulk of the gun ... cold metal against the warm skin of his hand. "Business is a little tight right now," he went on. "Money is not flowing in as it used to. Fact is, Stefano. My business could be about to go down the toilet."  
  
"Please ... my ... my shop is not so good. You understand? One businessman to another. Please, Harry?"  
  
Harry shook his head. "It's a measly two grand, Stefano," he said. "Now ... unless you want to start paying interest, and at ten per cent a week, I really don't think you want that," Stefano shook his head, "I suggest you find me some cash, pronto."  
  
Stefano looked panicked.  
  
"Otherwise ...there might be ... a little accident. Your car getting old now is it?"  
  
Stefano nodded.  
  
"Funny how brakes, break," said Draco. "Especially on late '88 Toyota Corollas registered in the Clapham area. There was very nearly a recall."  
  
"There is jewellery," said Stefano. "Is all I have."  
  
"Get it," said Harry. "We'll wait here."  
  
Stefano disappeared upstairs. The three men could hear him thumping around, a door slammed, and then someone else, a woman, shouted. Harry could hear Stefano shouting back. The door banged shut again ... then, the thudding noise of his footfall on the uncarpeted stairs.  
  
"Get it?" asked Harry.  
  
He looked at Stefano ... and was shocked to see an expression of cold, calculating anger on his tanned, moustachioed face. Harry looked slowly down. "Clever boy," he said to himself.  
  
"Out," said Stefano, putting his hand on the bottom of the banister rail for support.  
  
"A handgun, Stefano? In a private household?" Harry went on. "Naughty, naughty. You'll get caughty."  
  
"Ten seconds to get out," said Stefano. "Five days ... five days I shall have your money. Now, out of my house."  
  
"You're bluffing," said Harry, reaching into the pocket of his jacket, closing his fingers around his own weapon, and withdrawing it slowly. "Snap," he said.  
  
"You might be bluffing too," said Stefano, shrugging.  
  
"Would you care to call that bluff?" asked Harry, releasing the safety catch. "Of course ... the chamber might be empty. Or it might not be. It's rather like the perennial family favourite, Russian roulette."  
  
"Are you going to call my bluff?" asked Stefano. "I might be loaded as well."  
  
"I very much doubt it," said Harry. "Let me tell you a funny story about Russian roulette. I am assured it is absolutely true. It seems that back in 1997 a youth from Austin, Texas, took it upon himself to have a game with his friends. Unfortunately, he played with an automatic pistol."  
  
"What's your point?"  
  
"A pistol that automatically inserts a bullet into the firing chamber," said Harry. "Bang ... no more youth, blood all over the garage walls. Pity it wasn't the Governor."  
  
"Ten seconds, Potter. I want you out."  
  
"There is no bullet in that gun," said Harry. He took a step forwards. "Now ... why don't we take a trip upstairs, and collect the family jewel box. I'm sure we can find something of value. If not, the Christmas presents can't have been played with much, yet. They'd probably fetch half retail price. I know a trader over in Camden who can do you an excellent deal."  
  
Stefano closed his eyes, and tightened his finger on the trigger. With a start, Harry saw he was not bluffing.  
  
He ducked just in time. The bang echoed around the house. Harry, who was crouched on the floor, stood up, and coughed. Smoke was filling the narrow hallway, and from upstairs came the sound of a child screaming.  
  
"I would say ... I underestimated you, 007," said Harry. "Unfortunately, it would be a bit of a cliché."  
  
"Two days," said Draco. "You have two days. Next time, you will call our bluff."  
  
Harry nodded, and tucked his gun back into his pocket. "You have two days, Stefano ... and you will give us the money. You see ... I always get what I want ... one way, or another."  
  
They turned, stepped over the now lifeless corpse of Meakes, which was lying on the floor, a pool of blood spreading rapidly across the bare floorboards, and left the house, banging the door shut as they went. They left Stefano standing over the body, quivering uncontrollably, the smoking gun still in his hands, his fingerprints all over it.  
  
Andy was sitting in the front seat of the Vauxhall, staring dead ahead, a cigarette end dangling from his lips.  
  
"I have a feeling our friend Stefano won't leave matters there," said Harry, climbing into the back seat, followed by Draco. "We should make tracks for the suburbs."  
  
"Sir?" asked Andy.  
  
"Ditch the wheels, Denton. You improbably dense man," said Harry. "Draco ... call Simon ... get him to meet us at the office, in an hour's time. Tell him to bring the Beemer."  
  
"I'm onto it," said Draco, taking his impossibly small mobile out of the pocket of his impossibly tight slacks.  
  
Harry kicked the back of Andy's seat. "Well, drive, you silly idiot. He's probably already called the police. It won't take those effete arseholes long to put two and two together."  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"Stefano Montefiore, respected Greco-Italian vegetable wholesaler ... versus Harry James Potter, owner of gyms, seedy clubs, and the largest pornography racket in Western Europe. I think they'll work it out sooner or later," Harry settled back in his seat as Keith pulled away from the kerb, and lit a cigarette. "Pity about Meakes though."  
  
He did not notice the other car ... a black Mercedes, pulling away from the kerb opposite. Nor did he notice the driver. It was Morris Cardwell.  



	2. Raiders of the Lost Wizard.

SNITCH!  
  
A/N  
  
Snitch! contains adult material, explicit language and situations, including same sex relationships. If this is illegal where you live, or if you find it in any way offensive, please hit your back button now, and stick to my other works, Dracaena Draco and The Time of Trial, which are both normal fanfics. Thank you.  
  
Once again for the slower ones. Flames are not welcome. This story is technically slash.  
  
As ever, Harry and Co. still belong to JKR, to whom I apologise, as I have a feeling she wouldn't like this much anyway. No commercial benefit, no intellectual rights belong to me and so on.  
  
And thank you to the wonderful people who reviewed Part One, for whom there is a nice long winded thank you section waiting at the end! I was overwhelmed by the positive response. Thank you, all.  
  
PART TWO. RAIDERS OF THE LOST WIZARD.  
  
"I had a feeling they'd try and run," said Ron, turning away from the orb, which was hovering over the table, and casting an ethereal white glow on the faces of those present. It made them look like ghosts.  
  
"Doesn't it make our lives rather more difficult?" asked Remus Lupin, lowering his copy of the Daily Prophet's evening edition. "Excuse me for spoiling the fun ... but aren't we meant to be hauling them both in?"  
  
Ron nodded, and so did several of the other wizards sitting around the table, all staring into the orb with something approaching fascination. It was the very latest in Magical surveillance equipment, the lab boys downstairs had been working on it for some time. It showed the subject in 3D, and real time too, better than any Muggle computer.  
  
"It makes our lives bloody impossible," said Ron. "Thankfully, Cardwell is a rather good driver."  
  
"What are his credentials?" asked Avon Tyrell, looking up from the image floating in midair before them.  
  
"He trained with the International Bureau of Magical Espionage, and was in the States for a while ... National Magical Surveillance Unit. He was working out of Quantico, near Washington," said Ron. "And he's a damn good driver too ..."  
  
"Not a Muggle, then?"  
  
"Certainly not," said Ron. "Top of his year at Hogwarts, valedictorian, class of 1989. The other one, Bones, he's a tricky customer. Not one of ours ... an Auror by trade ... technically he's on loan from the Barking mob, but we might try and find an excuse to hold onto him ..."  
  
"It would appear, our two hand picked experts have just lost Mr. Potter and friends," piped up Strickland Abbas, a short, nervous-looking wizard, who had just been promoted from the Regional IBME office in Paris, where he had been pushing documents around for ten years.  
  
"So much for the facilities they gave the Barking lot," Avon said in an ominous tone of voice; he had a soft, Dublin accent. "I thought that Evasive Muggle Driving course was meant to be worth the fifty million start-up fee. Anyone else sense black monies heading down the drain here?"  
  
"Show me Bones and Cardwell," snapped Ron, pointing his fingers at the orb. The image changed instantly, showing the black Mercedes, which was stuck in traffic on Goldhawk Road in Chiswick.  
  
"Damn it!" swore Avon.  
  
"Bloody waste of time," said Remus, folding his paper, so that the action unfolding before his eyes might have his undivided attention. "Why can't we just send out the Sweeney?"  
  
"You what?"  
  
"It's Cockney rhyming slang," said Remus. "Sweeney Todd ... Flying Squad."  
  
"Their brooms are getting repaired," said Avon. "We're on a Winter training cycle here, Remus ... half our equipment is either in for servicing, or out of commission."  
  
"What the hell is wrong with this place?" scowled Remus. "If it isn't misappropriation of funds, then it's pointless, efficiency-sapping bureaucracy. And has anybody noticed how the drinks dispenser in the canteen has started dispensing oxtail soup instead of cream of tomato?"  
  
"Actually, that was a staff council decision," said Strickland. "We decided at the last meeting ... fifteen to one."  
  
"I though the meeting was inquorate?"  
  
"No, that was the last one ... this time they offered free butterbeer, so everyone turned up," said Avon. "Anyway, it's all to do with the European Union of Wizards, it's some new directive ..."  
  
"Is that the one that has something to do with the tea?" asked Remus.  
  
Avon waved his fingers. "Oh, no ... it's almost, but not entirely, quite unlike tea. Anyway, that was back in 1998. The directive you're thinking of is number four hundred and six G, page four, paragraph six, you can't miss it ..."  
  
"Paragraph six?" said Strickland. "Surely that's, 'Any male NCO caught sniffing the saddle of the exercise bike in the women's gym will be court martialled.'"  
  
"No ... that's paragraph eight. You're thinking of paragraph seven c. Paragraph six reads, 'No officer with false teeth shall attempt ...'"  
  
"When we've quite finished our discussion!" Ron cut in, standing up and looking furiously around the gathering. "There are slightly more important things on hand than the catering!"  
  
"Sorry, sir," said Avon. Strickland and Remus didn't say anything.  
  
"I like those new egg mayonnaise sandwiches ..."  
  
"Remus!"  
  
"Sorry ... you have the floor, Ron."  
  
Ron nodded. "Thank you very much," he said, casting his eyes around the table, as though he was daring any of the other men to say anything else. "Look. We can't allow Potter to suspect we're onto him. He has to have free reign to go where he wants, and to do what he wants. I reckon he's already suspicious ..." he was cut off in mid-flow by his mobile, which was vibrating violently.  
  
"Excuse me a minute," he flipped open the phone, and turned it on. "Hello, Weasley."  
  
The others looked on, Ron nodded, once, then twice, and finally said. "Okay ... I understand. Have him debriefed immediately. And make sure someone switches on the camcorder this time."  
  
The voice on the other end of the line seemed to be getting angry.  
  
"Well then find somebody who's Muggle born!" snapped Ron. "It's all elastic trickery anyhow!" he put the phone down. "That was Cassie, over in Medical. They've just brought in Montefiore."  
  
"Is he okay?" asked Remus.  
  
Ron nodded. "He'll be fine. He's just a little shaken up," he said. "They'll put some basic memory charms on him, and release him back into the community. Meakes is back too."  
  
"What happened to him?"  
  
"He took a bullet in the chest," said Ron. "Thankfully, that new adamantine stuff is working. The doctors say we can debrief him in the morning. Well, Gentlemen ... it doesn't look like there'll be much more work done tonight. Avon, head down to dispatch and get a squad sent to Harry's office. I'll sign the necessary papers if you just get them to owl me."  
  
"Right away, sir," Avon stood up, gathered his cloak around him, and swept from the room.  
  
************  
  
It was gone ten o'clock when they pulled up outside Harry's flat, having first taken a circuitous route around central London to make sure they were not being followed. Harry and Draco stood on the pavement, their breath condensing before their faces as Andy drove off, taking the corner at the end of the road in an impressive skid which failed to bury him in a lamppost. Somewhere in the neighbourhood, a dog was barking.  
  
"I left my car at the office," said Harry, fumbling in his pocket for his front door keys.  
  
"You can pick it up tomorrow," said Draco. "Look ... unless you fancy buying me a cab, can I kip on your sofa?"  
  
Harry nodded, and let them into the building. His flat was on the top floor of a gentrified Victorian mansion, deep amongst the New Labour voting, pesto eating Islington set. Unlike Draco's it was not all chrome and smoked glass, but like Draco's it had a view, albeit a view of the opposing buildings on the other side of the street.  
  
He switched on the lights, and cleared the accumulated post with his foot; evidently he had not been spending much time at home just lately. Draco followed him in. The flat smelled of unwashed clothes, unaired rooms, and mouldy bread. It had 'straight' written all over it. Draco's heart sank.  
  
"Sorry it's a bit of a mess," said Harry. He ducked under a deflated balloon, hanging forlornly from the ceiling, and led Draco into the sitting room. The walls were painted a vibrant shade of red, and there were what Draco really, really hoped were fake animal skins hanging on the walls. There was also a wooden carving of an elephant over by the window.  
  
"Nice," said Draco, who had never actually seen Harry's flat before. "Very ... African," he added, haltingly.  
  
"That was Victoria," said Harry, referring to his previous girlfriend, whom he had lived with for nearly three months, surely a record. "I hadn't gotten around to changing it yet."  
  
"Not much time for interior designing?" asked Draco. "You know, I have some friends who could ... oh fuck ..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I left my friends at home."  
  
"They're sensible, aren't they?" asked Harry, clearing a pile of CD cases off the sofa.  
  
"They're naked and horny," said Draco. "They're anything but sensible."  
  
"Well, give them a call if you're worried," said Harry. "If you really want, I can lend you the cab fare, mind, you won't be home for an hour or so."  
  
"I'll phone them," said Draco, extracting his mobile once again from his trousers. "Just to make sure."  
  
"Fancy a nightcap?"  
  
Harry left the room whilst Draco phoned home. He interrupted Julian and Marcus in the middle of a naked bed top wrestling session, and after getting their assurances that they'd look after the place for him, collapsed on the sofa. He fumbled under the cushions for the remote, and turned the telly on. Harry had just had digital TV installed ... and had 'forgotten' to lock the Playboy Channel.  
  
Draco looked away in disgust. "No imagination," he muttered to himself. From somewhere outside came the sound of police sirens, but this did not worry him in the slightest. Hmm ... the lady of the house seemed to want to get to know her gentleman caller very well.  
  
"This is disgusting," he said, as Harry came back in with two glasses of whisky, neat, on the rocks, just as he knew Draco always had it.  
  
"I like it," said Harry, handing Draco his glass, and sitting down next to him. The couple on screen were tearing each other's underwear off with quite alarming gusto.  
  
"You don't have any Dutch channels?"  
  
Harry shook his head.  
  
"Internet?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Yes, actually."  
  
"Can I take a look in your 'favourites' file?" asked Draco, nuzzling against Harry's shoulder.  
  
"Fuck off."  
  
"You seemed quite keen ..."  
  
"That was seven years ago," said Harry. "It was a one-off. It doesn't mean I have any ..."  
  
"That's what they all say," said Draco. "You can't deny it was fun."  
  
"I was pissed out of my mind the first time," said Harry, downing his whisky in one gulp, the ice cubes banging against the rim of the glass as he did so. "I wouldn't remember it if you gave me some sort of draught."  
  
"That could be arranged," said Draco.  
  
"I didn't mean magic," said Harry, making a face at the alcohol.  
  
"Remember the Veritaserum?" asked Draco. "It came in rather handy, as I remember."  
  
"Draco, are you coming on to me?"  
  
Draco nodded. "Was it that obvious?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So I fancy you ... so sue me."  
  
Harry looked at Draco; his eyes seemed to be burning behind his spectacles. "It was a few times," he said. "Just a few times. I was sixteen ... you're living in a fucking time warp!"  
  
"Well ... sorry," said Draco. "I was just ..."  
  
"Not interested," said Harry. "You took advantage of me ... that's pretty low, don't you think? Look, I'm going to bed, there are blankets and pyjamas in the hall cupboard."  
  
"Night," huffed Draco. Harry got up, and left the room, leaving his whisky glass on top of the telly. Draco heard his angry footsteps outside, followed by the hissing and gurgling of pipes in the bathroom, then a door slamming.  
  
He turned his attention back to the telly, where the action had shifted to the back seat of a car. He picked up the remote again, and turned over.  
  
************  
  
The dream came again that night ...  
  
"Believe me, Potter. I would if I could ..."  
  
Harry stood in front of the desk, nervously twisting the hem of his robes around his hands. There was nothing he could say that would make the slightest bit of difference. But he was damned if he wasn't going to stand his corner.  
  
"Can't I stay ... I'll help Hagrid or something?"  
  
"Potter, it's ... I don't like it either," she was watching his face over the top of her spectacles. Harry was forced to blink rapidly in order to keep himself from crying. "But Mr. Malfoy was most insistent. He doesn't want you going near his son. He believes you are a bad influence. And you do realise he is threatening to take Draco out of school?"  
  
"It was just once! And, and you'd go on what that bastard thinks?" snapped Harry, taking a step nearer the desk. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece suddenly seemed to tick with an increasingly sonorous boom.  
  
"I'll put that outburst down to nerves, Potter," said Professor McGonagall sharply. "You must understand that we simply cannot disobey the orders when they come. Especially from the school governors. We have to be seen to be doing the right thing. Professor Snape agrees with me."  
  
Harry, figuring it hardly mattered anymore, called Snape a very rude word, which made Professor McGonagall stutter.  
  
"If Dumbledore was here, he'd put a stop to this. He wouldn't be cowardly. He'd accept it. He wouldn't be like you're being," he leant in closer to the desk, suddenly completely unafraid of whatever she might do to him. "You have a yellow streak longer than a stampede of diarrhoeic camels."  
  
"Harry Potter!" she spluttered again, her face going an interesting shade of purple, which Harry would have found amusing if the circumstances hadn't been quite so dire.  
  
Harry stepped back from the desk. Professor McGonagall coughed loudly, and then said, in a low voice. "You will return forthwith to your dormitory and collect your things. You will be put on the seven o'clock sleeper service to King's Cross ... this gives you two hours to say goodbye to whoever you need to say goodbye to."  
  
Harry turned on his heels. "And, one more thing."  
  
He turned back again. Professor McGonagall was holding out her hand.  
  
"We'll be wanting your wand back."  
  
He could not help himself. Tears were running down Harry's face as he stepped over to the desk, reaching into his robes and withdrawing his wand, not managing to escape the knowledge that he was feeling the smooth wood against the palm of his hand for the last time. Slowly, he reached out, and handed it over.  
  
"Eleven inches," he said, quietly. "Holly and phoenix feather ..."  
  
Professor McGonagall took it from him, and without ceremony, took both ends, and snapped it. An eldritch howling sound rang out, and showers of purple sparks cascaded from the broken ends of Harry's wand.  
  
"Now leave."  
  
************  
  
Harry found him the next morning, asleep in front of CNN. He was covered in a tartan blanket, and his trousers and T-shirt were lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. He looked about ten years younger, as most people do when they are asleep. Harry smiled as he remembered what Draco had been like at thirteen. Mind you, he wasn't much better these days, if a bit mellower, and less snide, something Harry put down to his legendary daily cannabis intake.  
  
Harry sat back down on the floor, and switched to ITV ...  
  
" ... homicide in Clapham, south London. Stefano Montefiore, an exotic foods wholesaler, originally from Athens but living in the area since 1993, shot dead an intruder at his terraced home. Montefiore, who has no criminal record, is at present in custody. The murdered man has been identified as Arthur Meakes, a small-time gangster from Camden Town, who is alleged to have links to London club baron, Harry Potter. The involvement of Potter in the incident has yet to be ruled out. Fears that this killing may precipitate a turf war between London's increasingly violent gangland elements are completely without substance, according to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Jack Burgess, who claims the murder was an isolated incident. Sports news now, and as Manchester United struggle to stay out of the relegation zone, Charlton Athletic have announced the signing of four new strikers ..."  
  
Harry smiled. Well, had he honestly expected the whole thing to go unnoticed?  
  
Draco stirred, opened one eye lazily, spotted Harry sitting on the floor next to him, wearing grey pyjama bottoms, and draped one arm around his shoulders. There was a tattoo on Harry's upper arm he had not noticed before. It was some unidentifiable Chinese character.  
  
"What does it mean?" Draco asked.  
  
"Peace," said Harry, and left it at that.  
  
"There's one on my right thigh," said Draco. "It's a smiley face," to which Harry said absolutely nothing.  
  
" ... will go to the top of the Premiership, if they draw with Leicester City on Saturday, although with Owen still out injured, their chances do not look good. Over to Jenny now, who has the weather for us ..."  
  
"It's going to snow!" exclaimed Draco in glee. "We should build a snowman."  
  
"I've got business to take care of," said Harry.  
  
"Ooh ... can I come?"  
  
"I was hoping you would," said Harry, without apparent enthusiasm. "No, really. I'll need you to be there."  
  
"Muscle?"  
  
Harry laughed. "Not exactly," he said. "There are some chaps I want you to meet."  
  
"I like meeting chaps," grinned Draco.  
  
"Can I have any kind of conversation with you without it degenerating to a level of smut worthy of a Bernard Manning gig?" said Harry, gently removing Draco's arm from his shoulders.  
  
"If you want," said Draco. "Do you want me to make you some breakfast?"  
  
************  
  
Ron parked his car outside the house, and, blinking heavily, his head almost, but not entirely enveloped by a thick blanket of sleep, walked up to the front door, fumbling with the keys.  
  
Ginny was in the hall, wrapping up Cameron in thick scarves and gloves, making the child look like a small, mobile wool shop.  
  
"All nighter?" she asked, as Ron stumbled through the front door. He nodded.  
  
"Yeah, sorry," he said.  
  
"Don't worry ... if Hermione was at all worried about me, she'd have phoned."  
  
"Did she?"  
  
Ginny shook her head. "Of course, she might have been up at the Institute all night. You know how she gets if something new comes up."  
  
Ron gave his four year old son a hug. He was holding a blue lunchbox. "Were you good for Auntie Gin?"  
  
The bundle nodded ... Cameron's hat slipped forwards over his bright blue eyes. Ron set the boy down again. "You'll be wanting to get home then," he said. "Shall I drop him off at playgroup?"  
  
"If you drive another hundred yards like that, you're going to have a crash," said Ginny. "We'll go by Portkey ... it'll be okay," Ginny had stubbornly refused to learn to drive, preferring more traditional modes of transport. The fact that her work kept her out of the Muggle world most of the time made this quite a sensible decision. Ron, on the other hand, regularly had dealings with Muggles, and his elderly Saab was as indispensable as his wand.  
  
"You sure?"  
  
Ginny nodded. "You need to get some sleep. Look, I'll collect him as well if you like."  
  
Ron smiled. "Would you ... it's just that I have to be back at HQ before very much longer."  
  
************  
  
The red light was blinking on the answer machine as Draco busied himself in Harry's poky kitchen, collecting coffee, bread, cereal and orange juice. Harry's cupboards were virtually empty. Clearly he was more inclined to bung something in the microwave for five minutes, and feast upon the resultant tasteless goo, rather than actually cook himself a decent meal. Draco suddenly felt rather sorry for him. It must be hard for the poor bugger; being straight.  
  
Being nosy, he clicked on the machine and played the message.  
  
" ... Harry, this is Winston. It's about twenty past seven. Look, pick up, you bastard!" there was a very pregnant pause. "Oferfucksake! Pick up! Look, Harry. I'm down the office, I just got here. There's been someone here, overnight ... they've turned the fucking place over! Just get down here, I'll ring again in twenty. I've called nobody else ... actually, I called Draco, but there's nobody in."  
  
"We'd better head down there then," said Harry, who was standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame. Draco spun round.  
  
"You're not at all bothered?"  
  
Harry shook his head. "The office is the legitimate face of my business," he said. "All the really bad shit is in the lockup down in Croydon. If anybody was really looking to pin something on me, they'd do some research, and leave the office alone."  
  
"But somebody was looking for you!"  
  
Harry shrugged. "I rather thought they might be. Whoever they are, they don't have a clue about me."  
  
"Police?"  
  
"Probably not," said Harry. "I had some visitors yesterday ... one Mr. Bones, and his mate Cardwell. Never seen them before in my life, of course. They're looking for start-up capital for a club in Soho. Biggest load of bollocks I ever heard in my life, of course ..."  
  
"You mean they're not?" asked Draco, whose eyes were fixed on Harry's stomach. He knew that his boss used the gyms to work out, but he had no idea he did it that often.  
  
"Nah, load of crap," said Harry. "God alone knows what they really wanted. I agreed to go down and take a look. This evening."  
  
"Is that altogether wise?"  
  
"You're coming with me, you sad git," said Harry. "Make coffee, I'm going to get dressed."  
  
Draco spooned instant out of a jar, while he listened for the sounds of Harry going about his ablutions, wishing he had been invited along to watch. Sighing, and shivering slightly, for the central heating seemed to have gone off, he filled the kettle, and waited for it to boil.  
  
He was just pouring water into the mugs when Harry came back into the kitchen, freshly laundered, smelling vaguely of a cologne Draco could have identified given a few minutes, and wearing white jeans and a navy blue turtleneck sweater.  
  
"Thanks," he said, taking one of the mugs. It had 'A Bonk A Day Keeps The Doctor Away,' written on it. Draco would drink to that.  
  
"When shall we go?" asked Draco, sipping his vile coffee. At home, he drank only freshly ground Blue Mountain, and on a week by week basis, spent the GNP of Zaire in Starbucks. Nescafe was a bit of a let down after that.  
  
"When you put some clothes on," said Harry. "Strutting round my house in your boxers."  
  
"I was hoping you'd appreciate the show," said Draco.  
  
"Rampant fantasies of rolling on my living room carpet shagging the living daylights out of each other aside ..." began Harry.  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"Lucky guess ... get dressed, you slightly alarming naked person, you."  
  
************  
  
Having left his normal car at the office, Harry was forced to drag his vintage Ferrari out of the garage, much to Draco's delight, as one of his fantasies involved Ferraris.  
  
They purred into London, braving the morning traffic, and drawing appreciative glances from the crowds of commuters, scurrying along the grimy city pavements like rats deserting a sinking ship.  
  
It was when they got behind an old, blue Ford Anglia heading south along Charing Cross Road, that Harry got one of his frequent pangs of regret. The dream had come again the previous night. It had been troubling him with greater regularity of late, and it was something of a concern. If he was just a regular Muggle, he could have gone to see a shrink, or something. However, he had the feeling that even the most open-minded of doctors would refer him to a padded cell if he told them he was a repressed wizard.  
  
He turned and looked the other way as they drove past the Leaky Cauldron. To the left of the half-timbered façade was a modern office block, and to the right, a tall, Victorian building, housing one of Charing Cross' many bookshops, and Muggles were rushing past, oblivious to the magic in their midst. Harry shuddered. I can see it. I'm that close to it. But I can never go into it. As for Draco, he did not even seem to have noticed.  
  
Sometimes he wondered if perhaps the time at Hogwarts, one of few times that he had felt truly alive, had been a dream too, and that he had always been like this. Would anybody recognise him if he walked right back into the Leaky Cauldron now?  
  
Probably not. Copious amounts of gel, and frequent visits to the barber's shop had tamed the once wild and unruly hair. Gone were the round, NHS glasses, held together by gaffer tape, to be replaced by either contacts, or fashionable designer spectacles, depending on what mood he was in. Gone too was the childish set to his face, that he had kept longer than most. And gone were the horrid, baggy hand-me-downs.  
  
The only thing that still stood in testament to Harry's old life, an obscene reminder every time he looked in the mirror in the mornings, was the scar. Thin, jagged round the edges, and shaped vaguely like a lightning bolt. It was not as prominent as it had once been; after all, all scars faded with time, but you would still have needed to be blind not to notice it.  
  
************  
  
Despite the mess the raiders had created, Stella, the secretary, had opened up as usual, and there were already several young ladies working out on the rowing machines, supervised by Jonathan, the one with the ponytail. Harry knew about the exercise bike incident, mainly because Draco had not known about the security cameras.  
  
This was his first thought upon reaching his office; to check the videotapes of last night. While Draco hung back by the door, watching Jonathan's buttocks and practically drooling, he took out the relevant videos, and stuck them in the machine.  
  
Whoever had raided him had not known to disable the cameras, as any policeman would have done. The first tape showed the foyer downstairs. There were three men, picking the lock, though the image was too blurry for Harry to make out how they did it.  
  
The second camera was hidden behind his large Salvador Dali print. It showed the men rummaging through his drawers and filing cabinets. They seemed monumentally unconcerned with what they were doing. They were also wearing what looked like black cloaks.  
  
Draco peered over Harry's shoulder, and let out a long, low whistle. One of the men was holding what was unmistakably a wand.  
  
"Harry?"  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"I think you've got wizards."  
  
Harry scowled at Draco. "Well, don't make too much noise, they might be hiding under the desk," he said, sarcastically.  
  
"I didn't know you had TV cameras," Draco added, reproachfully.  
  
"In the foyer, the gym, and in here," said Harry.  
  
"Do you think I might see the ... um?"  
  
Harry nodded. "It's number G6," he said. "Bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. The image is a bit fuzzy, but you can just about make it out."  
  
"Was I good?" asked Draco.  
  
"Well ... I didn't know it was possible to do that," said Harry. "Especially that thing with the legs."  
  
"That was out the Kama Sutra," said Draco. "Thanks for vindicating my magnificent sexual prowess," he leaned forwards, and pecked Harry on the cheek.  
  
"Fuck off."  
  
"Harryyyy!" moaned Draco. "Please let me have sex with you?"  
  
"Go and get your video," said Harry, absent-mindedly. "There's a good boy."  
  
"Then can I have you on the table?"  
  
"On the sofa," said Harry.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
"Probably not. Ooh ... you're too cruel, Harry Potter. I think I might have to have a little cry," Draco crossed the room, and opened the filing cabinet with the videos in.  
  
"Why would wizards be interested in me?" Harry pondered.  
  
"Ask a silly question!" came Draco's voice. "You know, I think they might have nicked the tape."  
  
"Well, they didn't come to offer you a career in the gay porn industry," said Harry.  
  
"Pity. Perhaps they wanted to join the gym. The amount some of those buggers at Hogwarts used to eat," he added. "Dumbledore could do with shedding a few pounds. And I want to be a porn star. We could call it 'Fun With Draco, Volume I.'"  
  
"Shut up, Malfoy."  
  
"To be followed with 'Fun With Draco, Volumes II, III and IV.' They come as a box set. And there's the festive special ... 'We Wish You A Merry Draco.' Or 'Draco Wears Leather.'"  
  
"What's so special about you wearing leather?" asked Harry. "You do it all the time."  
  
"Only when I'm clubbing," said Draco. "You could be in my video, if you want ... the innocent young newspaper delivery boy, shanghaied into sordid shenanigans with sexually stimulating sorcerers ... that'd be me, obviously."  
  
"They want something," said Harry, ignoring him.  
  
"Probably a good seeing to," said Draco.  
  
"Can you get sex off your mind for one minute?"  
  
"Nope. Tried it ... didn't work."  
  
"Let's concentrate on the matter in hand," said Harry, glaring at Draco, as if daring him to make innuendo out of it. Draco said nothing. "We've been raided by a bunch of blokes in cloaks, carrying wands. Probably wizards, possibly a student rag week stunt, and there's an outside chance we've been infiltrated by the Russians. They've taken nothing, but they've left the place in a bit of a mess. So let's say they were looking for something, but didn't find it ..."  
  
"No ... let's say I'm the randy traffic cop, and you're the speeding dishwasher repair man ..."  
  
"Draco!"  
  
"You can be the cop?"  
  
Harry rounded on him. "Just shut the fuck up! For one damn second, keep your mouth shut unless you have something constructive to add to my train of thought!"  
  
Draco recoiled at the force of the words. Harry went on. "It's just one long joke for you, isn't it? If you're not thinking about sex, you're thinking about sex. You're like a rabbit on heat, you are. Just ... just fucking concentrate, yeah?"  
  
"Okay, sorry," said Draco, grumpily.  
  
"Now open that cupboard," said Harry. "There should be a large safe in the back."  
  
Draco opened the cupboard, and poked his head inside. "There's a combination lock," he said. "Four numbers."  
  
"That's easy," said Harry. "One nine eight one."  
  
"Unoriginal Gryffindor to the end, aren't we?" said Draco. "Um, what are we looking for, exactly?"  
  
"There's something in there they might want back," said Harry.  
  
"Where the fuck is it then?" asked Draco.  
  
Draco was down on his hands and knees, his head stuck halfway inside the safe. "I'm telling you," he repeated. "There's absolutely sod all in here."  
  
Harry was beside himself with rage. "Then the fuckers have taken it with them. Bastards!"  
  
Draco emerged from inside the cupboard, and coughed. "Is it that much of a disaster?" he asked.  
  
Harry nodded. "It is if they see what I think they're looking for."  
  
"What might that be?"  
  
Harry scowled at Draco. "What makes you think I'd tell you?" he snapped. "That trunk was very private, very private indeed."  
  
"Irreplaceable private?" asked Draco. "Or was it just a secret stash of porn I didn't know about? Sorry," he added, upon catching the expression on Harry's face.  
  
************  
  
"... including the confiscation of several highly dangerous magical objects," said the officer, concluding his report. "Sir," he added, as an afterthought.  
  
"Thank you," said Ron. "It's Harry's case all right. I recognise the battered bit."  
  
Remus gave him a sideways look.  
  
"He once dropped it on the train," said Ron, by way of explanation. He turned to the officer who had brought the trunk in. "Thanks, Stibbons ... you may go."  
  
"Thank you, sir!" the officer saluted Ron smartly, turned on his heels, and left the debriefing room. The trunk was sitting on the table, dead centre.  
  
"We should probably open it," said Avon.  
  
Ron leaned over it, and with a little tap of his wand, opened the locks. He lifted the lid, cautiously, not knowing what he might find.  
  
The first thing that struck him was the lingering scent in the trunk. It smelled of Quidditch in there, of leather balls, cut grass and linseed oil, and the peculiar milky scent that, all these years on, he could still recognise as Harry.  
  
"Gentlemen," said Remus. "This is quite a private moment. Perhaps we should step outside."  
  
Ron lifted out some of the objects inside. There was a notebook, leather bound, with gold embossed writing on the cover. He had never seen that before, he thought, with a pang of bitterness, though of course, Harry had been perfectly entitled to have some secrets. He set the book down on the table. Underneath that was the dog eared copy of 'Flying with the Cannons' that he still remembered giving Harry, and a very battered edition of 'Quidditch Through the Ages,' that still bore a stamp inside the front cover. 'Property of Hogwarts' it read, 'Not to be removed (or we will take out your eyeballs with hooks ... yes, this means you, Potter).' Ron smirked.  
  
He removed the old textbooks, spare rolls of parchment, unwritten on, still as crisp and clean as they day they were bought. A bottle of India ink, black, British standard was next to emerge. Then came a bottle of linseed oil, which had leaked a bit, explaining the smell, and a large wooden box, with the words 'Broomstick Servicing Kit' still legible, though much worn.  
  
It was literally like stepping back in time, and Ron found himself poring over the most mundane objects, treating them almost as religious relics, even though they were only a handful of years old. There was a packet of owl treats, now mouldy with age. Ron wondered vaguely what had happened to Hedwig in the end.  
  
He lifted out Harry's pointed black hat, with the silver Prefect's buckle round the brim, and a Gryffindor scarf. The scarf smelled very strongly of Harry indeed, and he draped it round his neck. He could sense Remus and the others watching through the little glass window set in the door, but did not really care about them.  
  
He lifted out the photo album, not daring to look at what was within the pages. A broken wristwatch ... Ron wondered why on earth Harry had bothered to keep it, and a pair of nasty socks, concealing what Ron knew to be the Pocket Sneakoscope.  
  
There it was, lying at the bottom, shimmering in the light of the room, fold upon fold of silvery, ethereal material. The invisibility cloak. Ron smiled, and set it to one side.  
  
Somehow, his curiosity was very much aroused by the little leather bound book. Tentatively, he reached out, picked it up, and opened it.  
  
The first page held a rough, sketch drawing. Ron recognised the people in the picture as himself and Hermione ... and the date at the bottom, next to Harry's scrawled, lazy signature, was November 6th 1996. That had been a week before they'd chucked him out. Harry had always had a thing for drawing. It wasn't something many other people knew much about; that he always adorned his essays with little snitches and stars, and that stuck to the walls round and about his four poster in the dormitory were portraits of his friends, scenes of jubilant crowds at Quidditch matches, and ferocious, fire-breathing dragons.  
  
He turned the page. A small piece of notepaper fell out onto the floor, but he took no notice of it. The second and third pages were covered in Harry's doodles and ramblings. Little pictures of wizards on broomsticks were weaving in and out of the margins. Harry had charmed them so that their robes appeared to be flapping in the wind.  
  
He turned the page again.  
  
'I think I might be in love with someone. I don't think there can be any other way to describe it. We met each other again last night. It was brilliant, indescribable.'  
  
Ron shut the book. He'd heard the rumours, of course, mainly from Dean and Seamus, after Harry had been escorted off the premises by Snape, his head downcast, his footsteps faltering, never having looked so miserable in all his life.  
  
He remembered how Draco had been sitting on the steps in front of the school, looking very glum about something. He had not even got up to go back in when it had started raining, he just sat there, getting steadily soaked.  
  
Then, the story went, Draco had cracked one day. One of the other Slytherins had said something, and he had attacked him, violently. His Father, Lucius Malfoy had insisted upon his removal shortly afterwards. And then had come the newspaper reports. From what Ron had been able to piece together of the story, Draco had run away. His Father had been driven to suicide not long after, believing his son was dead. Everyone had believed Draco dead, until he had turned up working for Harry, a couple of years ago.  
  
Ron couldn't go on what was hearsay anymore, he resolved. He picked up the book again, determined to find out if what he had feared had really transpired, all those years ago.  
  
The next page was covered in more drawings. But these weren't like the others Harry did, sketches of Hogwarts ... the Astronomy Tower, seen through the dorm window, him and Hermione, a Quidditch scene. These were pictures of Draco. He was sitting cross legged on a bed, a sheet draped across his lap.  
  
He closed the book again, and picked up the piece of notepaper. Carefully, he unfolded it. It was in a hand he could not recognise. It was certainly not Harry's.  
  
'Dear Harry,  
  
Tonight? Astronomy Tower, 2 a.m.  
  
D'  
  
Oh, Harry! Ron turned over the page. He had always believed it couldn't be true. Not of his best friend. But the evidence was incontrovertible. It was all there.  
  
They had been sleeping together.  
  
A/N  
  
In the next part of Snitch! ... Harry and Draco have to get out of London quickly, and the best laid plans of Ron Weasley gang aft agley ... coming soon, to a theatre near you!  
  
The general tone of the reviews was 'damn, this is different', and I didn't get a single flame, which is great ... actually, I was really chuffed by such a positive response. Thank you all! As it's slash, I wasn't sure whether or not to put in a thanks column here, but decided to anyway, as it's what I usually do, so virtual hugs go out to the following ...  
  
Melpomene (glad you liked Slut!Draco), Rhysenn (lovely beta reading macros there), Sinead, RatheraMutemwiya, Amanita Lestrange (you're going to need to tell me who Damon Runyon is m'dear), Simon (a review I didn't expect, owing to content, but thanks anyway), Karina, Inspiring Author (when is WDIHTFTW going to be finished?), Saitaina, Hydra/Serpentese (sorry to lose you), Cassie Claire (apparently is rapidly resolving to lead me down the 'illustrious path of Harry/Draco'), giggling princess (you're right, DDO12 was just a set up for Time of Trial, I was sick of Dracaena by then), pantalaimon (ha, die Man. U, die! *from a Gunner*), Nora, darkangel (Teenage Witches are bad for your health, but a good deal of fun too), LongLongHair, Sylph (well, technically, in Europe everything the evil git does affects us, so we do have to live under him), Sanna (I've just finished Part 4, and Time of Trial is on Part 5), minx (I must plug Friends of Dorothy ... comic slash, go read!), Viola (that was Fight Club, wasn't it?), Flourish (Flourish reviewed? That's meant to be some kind of honour, right?), Moriel (Pulp Fiction, I'm thinking more Brit-gangster movies, like Snatch *hence the title* ... but the analogy works), dani, Blue Butterfly, the Sorcery Sisters, Kei (I've resolved not to write PWP), Catriona Snape, Mystical Me and CinH. Phew. See ya next time!  



	3. Entrapment.

SNITCH!  
  
A/N  
  
Here's your warning. This is an R rated story, which means it contains explicit language and situations, which may well be illegal where you live. It also contains gay relationships. This means slash. If you believe this is wrong, or you think it is against your religion, I respect your opinion, but I also must ask that out of respect for those who do not share your point of view, you hit the back button immediately.  
  
Some of the characters, concepts and locations used in this story are the sole intellectual property of J.K. Rowling, and other publishing houses and production companies worldwide. I recognise that I have no rights or control over said characters, and no commercial gain is being made by this story  
  
Thanks go out once more to all the reviewers!  
  
PART THREE. ENTRAPMENT.  
  
The Cauldron turned out to be a below-stairs club in an alleyway just off Old Compton Street, right in the heart of Soho. As Cardwell and Bones had insinuated, it was, indeed, very discreet. In fact, one would hardly have even noticed it was there without being told. The entrance was adorned with a single pink awning over the type of door more commonly found on suburban housing, and with the legend 'The Cauldron - Gentlemen's Club' picked out in black lettering.  
  
Technically, the place wouldn't open for another hour, but there was already music blaring from inside it, and so they pushed the door open, checking that the Berettas were in their place. As Harry had said, 'You never know what the buggers might be planning.'  
  
Draco was inclined to agree. Harry's description of Bones and Cardwell had not been flattering, and he was naturally suspicious of men who wore sunglasses in midwinter.  
  
There was a bouncer standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching the proceedings on the dance floor with interest. He turned around at the sound of their footsteps.  
  
"Got a reservation?" he asked, his voice gruff and uncompromisingly nasty.  
  
"We're not really customers," began Draco hastily, before being glared at by both Harry and the bouncer.  
  
"We have an appointment to see Mr. Bones and Mr. Cardwell," said Harry. "This is my card."  
  
The bouncer, who was twice as big as both of them, surveyed the card with the air of one surveying a daughter's phone bill. Finally, he pronounced himself satisfied, and tucked the card into the pocket of his jeans.  
  
"Right, Mr. Potter. Would you like a booth, or a table?"  
  
"Booth, please," said Harry.  
  
They were led into the club. Slap bang in the centre of the giant room, and occupying everyone's attention, was a stage, bathed in a dim blue light, with a single, metallic pole in the centre of it, the ensemble completed, of course, by a young woman, tanned and lovely, with dark hair cascading down her bare back; an effect reminiscent of a thundering waterfall.  
  
Harry was looking at her, his mouth wide open, as he slid onto the red leather seat. The table had an ashtray on it, as well as a tariff card, and a list of cocktails. There was also a pile of flyers for other clubs, which Draco looked at with evident interest.  
  
"Can I get you Gentlemen anything?" asked the bouncer.  
  
Harry had the sudden feeling that Draco was about to ask for something extravagant, with more than one type of drink in it, and an umbrella sticking out of the top. He jumped in before Draco had a chance to. "Two lagers," he said. "Carlsberg."  
  
"Right you are."  
  
"I hate lager," hissed Draco, as the bouncer disappeared into the smoky darkness of the club. The air was thick with the stench of stale tobacco, mingled with something else, something stronger. Some of the men sitting round the stage were cramming ten pound notes into the woman's red lace underwear, and whooping with thinly disguised delight.  
  
"We have to create the right impression," said Harry, taking his mobile out of his pocket, and setting it down on the table in between them. It was not switched on; it usually never was. Harry did not like to give clients the impression that he was the sort of man they would want to get in touch with. Besides, the ring tones embarrassed him.  
  
"The right impression precludes drinking warmed up urine, does it?" asked Draco. "Carlsberg, Harry. It's almost as bad as Budweiser."  
  
"Be quiet and concentrate on the stripper," said Harry.  
  
"I don't want to concentrate on the stripper," said Draco. "She's the wrong sex."  
  
A different man, taller, with sandy blond hair, came back with their drinks, which he set down before them without ceremony. "Mr. Bones will be along directly, sir," he said, curtly. Then he strode off to be brusque with somebody else.  
  
"Charming man," said Draco. "I almost wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry him."  
  
As it turned out, they didn't have to wait much longer for Jack Bones. He was wearing a dark Italian suit, cut very fine, and the material seemed to shimmer slightly as the different coloured lights fell upon it.  
  
"I took the liberty of not ordering a dancer over," said Bones, sitting down next to Draco. "I didn't think you Gentlemen would be especially interested," he smiled, a particularly smarmy smile, which made Harry ache to punch him in the mouth.  
  
Draco smiled. "News travels fast, eh?"  
  
"You could say that," said Bones. "And you could not. Anyway, we're not here to talk about that sort of thing. We're here to discuss money."  
  
Harry sipped his foul lager. "It seems nice," he said.  
  
"Would you like the Grand Tour?" asked Bones.  
  
Harry shook his head. "Why bother, when we can talk here?" he said. Bones looked slightly defeated, but was doing his best not to show it.  
  
"Why indeed? Well, Mr. Potter ... may I call you Harry?"  
  
"Be my guest," said Harry. "Everybody else does," he noticed with slight disdain that Bones seemed to be very interested in his scar.  
  
"Car crash," said Harry, causing Bones to give a start and look away hurriedly.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said. "It was just, rather obvious. A bad accident?"  
  
Harry nodded. "I was a baby," he said. "It killed my parents."  
  
"I'm sorry to hear that."  
  
"Not as sorry as I was," said Harry. "Still, ancient history."  
  
"Harry, I want you to listen to me very carefully," said Bones, leaning forward, the shadows on his face constantly shifting due to the revolving disco lights, as if he was about to disclose that he had once been caught in flagrante delicto with a young sailor. "I brought you here under, ah, somewhat false pretences."  
  
"You didn't want to talk business?"  
  
"Oh, business is foremost on my mind, as it should be on yours," said Bones. "But not that kind of business. We really have no use for your money."  
  
"Why are you interested in me then?" asked Harry.  
  
"I would have thought that was a silly question," said Bones. "Isn't everyone?"  
  
Alarm bells were very definitely ringing in Harry's head. "Um, maybe so."  
  
"I'm going to offer you a little ultimatum, Harry. You had something we want. Earlier today, we sent some of our chaps over to get it. You reviewed the tapes yourself ..."  
  
"That was you?"  
  
"They were our operatives," said Bones. "Each one a highly trained man. Very skilled in the arts of deception. The trouble is, though they found a great deal to interest our Head of Department, they failed to find the one thing that you still hide from us."  
  
Harry's hand was creeping to his inside jacket pocket, and he could see Draco was doing the same. Bones, noticing what they were doing, gave a wry chuckle.  
  
"The guns won't work, Harry," he said. "We have put up every Ward we could think of. We are unassailable in this place ..."   
  
At these words, the men sitting in the next booth stood up, and so did several others, seated at tables around the club.  
  
"So you see, I'm holding all the cards, at this time."  
  
"You want to watch you don't get sweaty hands then," said Harry. "You might find you drop them."  
  
"Touché," smiled Bones. "Good form, Harry."  
  
"Wards, you mean, Magical ones?" asked Harry.  
  
Bones nodded. "Very useful, they are," he said. "No Muggle weapon can hurt us in this place. If you'd played it safe, and brought along your old wand, Harry, you might have been able to wound some of us, perhaps even kill a couple. But we would have got you in the end. You see, we have known your every move for some months. Our Department has been watching you."  
  
"What Department is this?" asked Harry. "I washed my hands clean of you people. I want nothing more to do with you."  
  
"Perhaps you would like to accompany us back to our offices. They're only a couple of minutes walk from here," said Bones.  
  
"Tell me now, or I won't step foot outside this place without having drawn your blood," said Harry. "I want nothing more to do with you ... with any of you. You abandoned me!"  
  
Bones shrugged. "If you do not wish to come, I will, of course, understand. But I think you owe us the truth, Harry. Don't you?"  
  
"Who are you really?" asked Harry.  
  
"Oh, my name really is Bones," said Bones. "But then, I'm not the one who's been hiding under a falsehood. Both of you have been living a lie. Well, the powers that be dictate that lie must now end. Are you ready to come with me, or do I have to force you?"  
  
Draco was on his feet. "Your world threw us out," he said. "Why do you think we left? It was because I knew I could never gain acceptance in your world. Not being who I am, the son of my father, and not being what I am. Wizards are bright, but they're bigots too. Neither of us is leaving this club with you."  
  
"Why contact us now?" asked Harry. "I thought I was free of it all."  
  
"You can never be free," said Bones. "We will always be watching you. Didn't you know it would just be a matter of time?"  
  
"Hogwarts was an interval," said Harry. "A blip in my life. I have no business there. And you don't seem to understand. We like being Muggles."  
  
"You presume to insult the memory of your parents, Harry," Bones hissed. "Even I could not believe the Boy Who Lived would ever do that!"  
  
"Well, perhaps you should start looking for the boy," said Harry. "He's obviously the one you want. Too thick to know any better. Stupid enough to get drawn into your fantasy of a world ..." he rose from the table. "Understood?"  
  
Bones was a little lost for words. "I really don't think you want to run, Harry. We have this place surrounded."  
  
Draco was now on his feet too, an ugly expression creeping across his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw what he was planning to do before he did it, but did nothing to stop him. Draco's hand was going for his gun.  
  
"Surrounded with what, exactly?" asked Harry, calmly, stalling for time ...  
  
Bones opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a flurry of movement, as Draco whipped out his Beretta, and quick as a flash, whacked Bones on the head with the butt of his pistol. Bones let out a noise like a punctured football, and fell to the ground.  
  
For a moment, everyone just stood there. Even the music had stopped, and the stripper, who had been in the process of removing her bra, was trying to hide behind the pole.  
  
"Well, fucking run for it then!" yelled Draco.  
  
They charged out of the booth, Harry catching his beer as he did so, sending the glass crashing to the floor. Harry could hear shouts from the other men as they jumped to their feet, and the next thing he knew, someone big and heavy had grabbed him round the shoulders.  
  
It was the bouncer. Someone else was yelling. "Don't just stand there, you bloody idiots!"  
  
Harry delved again into his pocket, his fingers seeking, and eventually finding the gun; he tugged it free and whirled round, twisting out of the bouncer's grasp. The other man wound up with his arm twisted round behind his back, his face was contorted with pain. Harry jabbed the barrel of the gun into his back.  
  
"Give me a reason to fucking do it, and I swear I will!" he roared. "Keep back!" he added, as the others tried to close in on him.  
  
"Harry, come on!" yelled Draco, who was standing at the top of the stairs, by the exit.  
  
Harry's hands were shaking as he flipped off the safety catch, and rammed the gun deeper into the man's fleshy back.  
  
A tortured cry escaped his lips. "Please! Don't."  
  
"Fuck you," snapped Harry. He looked up. Several of the wizards were now standing a few feet away, their wands drawn.  
  
"I'm going to back up these stairs, and you're not going to make a move until I'm out that door. You are not going to follow me, you are not going to try and stop me. Once I'm outside, if I see that one of you has disobeyed me, I'll shoot this fucker in the head, God help me I will."  
  
He forced the bouncer to his feet, and began to walk backwards towards the staircase, sweat dripping off his body. He heard a faint click as Draco took the safety catch off his pistol, keeping the bar covered. Harry hauled the man up the stairs, and finally, out into the open. The street outside was not crowded, though the restaurant opposite was crowded with smart-looking patrons.  
  
Harry kept his hand tightly round the other man's neck, and the gun pressed deep into his back, as he walked him across the street to where he had parked the Mercedes. Draco opened the back door, and together, they heaved the bouncer's weighty form onto the back seat. Draco kept him covered with the gun as Harry walked around to the driver's door, and climbed in.  
  
"Where are we going now?" asked Draco, clambering into the back seat, slamming the door behind him. Harry activated the electronic locks on the doors, and then put on his seatbelt.  
  
"We ought to get out of town," said Harry. "Maybe for a day or so, till this blows over. Keep chummy in the puffa jacket well covered."  
  
"I'm on it," said Draco, jabbing the bouncer in the ribs with the Beretta. The man whimpered slightly.  
  
"Don't fucking hurt me," he groaned. "I won't be no trouble. Just don't fucking hurt me. I've got a kid, for Christ's sake."  
  
"What's the kid's name?" asked Harry, sticking a wad of chewing gum in his mouth and turning on the engine.  
  
"David," squeaked the bouncer.  
  
"Yours?"  
  
"Alf ... Alf Butcher."  
  
"Well, Mr. Butcher. We're just going for a little drive out to the country. Maybe you'll see David again, if you behave. If you don't behave, I might shoot you, or I might set Draco on you."  
  
"Nah, he's not my type," said Draco. "Too Rubenesque, I like them slim and delicate, nice abs ... a bit like you, Harry."  
  
"Shut it."  
  
"Worth a try," huffed Draco.  
  
Harry sighed, and, checking the mirror for any signs of hordes of armed wizards charging out of the club, pulled away from the curb.  
  
************  
  
Not far south of Crawley, where the main London to Brighton road began to pass over the South Downs, it went suddenly from being a six lane motorway to a much narrower, unlit road, winding through forests and diving over switchback hills in close succession. Driving along there at night, the orange tungsten glow that hung over London dispersed very quickly, as the stars came out to play.  
  
It was in a dark wood not far from Hayward's Heath that they left Alf the bouncer, dumping him at the side of the road, his pride bruised but otherwise physically unharmed. Harry and Draco continued on to the south coast, arriving in Brighton at about eight thirty on Thursday, January 9th.  
  
Thursday was always a big night on the south coast; it wasn't quite Friday, but it was almost the weekend, and a palpable sense of excitement hung over the town. Groups of drunken teenagers congregated in bus shelters, and the post-Christmas crowds of revellers made their way to the seafront clubs.  
  
Harry got behind a number 25 bus heading round Old Steine, and by the time they finally overtook it as it was heading up North Street, past Hanningtons, he was in quite a foul mood.  
  
"Get out the fucking way!" he swore at a group of partygoers trying to jaywalk on a red light.  
  
Draco sat very tight in the back seat. He knew better than to ask Harry exactly where they were going. He knew Harry had connections in Brighton, a town so inextricably linked with the capital that people referred to it as 'London-on-Sea,' however, he had never been here before in his life. He also knew Brighton had a vibrant, cosmopolitan gay scene, although as they drove down Western Road, passing identical shops selling identical things - newsagents, clothes, and the ubiquitous kebab joints - he saw no sign of it, and was vaguely disappointed.  
  
Harry's friend Steve 'Godzilla' Wilkes kept a fourth storey flat in one of the Georgian townhouses on Brunswick Square. Of course, one of the down sides of having a sea view and a vast, towering house, was that there was nowhere to park. Not that Harry let that bother him. He boxed in Steve's red Nissan Skyline, flicked off the Mercedes' headlights, and then picked up his mobile.  
  
"I suppose it'd be polite to give him a bell if we're crashing on his floor for a couple of days," said Harry. Draco was about to make some comment about hoping there was room for his exfoliating skincare products, but did not.  
  
Harry drummed his fingers on the dashboard as he waited for Steve to pick up the phone. Finally, after about ten rings, he did.  
  
"'Lo?"  
  
"Steve, it's Harry."  
  
"Harry ... fuck, man, where the hell are you?"  
  
"Outside, in the car," said Harry. "Look, Steve, we're in a spot of bother in London, can we hide with you for a couple of days?"  
  
"Yeah, fuck, no problem, man. Are you really outside my flat?"  
  
"Look out the window," said Harry.  
  
Draco stared up at the house. After a few seconds, someone appeared at one of the fourth storey windows, scanning the street. Harry waved.  
  
"Yeah, I gotcha," Steve's voice. "Who's the guy on the back seat? Are you picking up rent boys again, Harry?"  
  
"Kind of," said Harry, trying to ignore Draco, who had dissolved into fits of helpless laughter at overhearing this, and had fallen sideways on the back seat. "He's a friend."  
  
"Any other friends I should know about?" asked Steve.  
  
"Nope," said Harry. "There was someone else, but he was unable to accompany us beyond Gatwick."  
  
"I'll buzz you up," said Steve. "See you in a minute."  
  
Harry switched his mobile off, and tucked it back in the pocket of his jeans, then turned to Draco.  
  
"We could always pretend I am a rent boy," said Draco, in between giggles.  
  
"We're meant to be on the run," said Harry. "Innuendo will be kept to a minimum, else I really will give you a smack."  
  
They climbed out of the car, and climbed up the front steps to the house. Harry put his weight against the door, and it clicked open. Draco trailed after him into the building, letting the door slam shut behind them, and followed Harry up the stairs. It was quite a climb, and there was no lift, but eventually they fetched up on the top floor landing, where Steve was waiting for them.  
  
Draco's first impression of Steve was of a gruff, forty-something who bore a faint resemblance to the actor he always forgot out of 'Eastenders.' His head was bald, though looking closely, Draco saw that his hair was actually cropped very short. He had a thick neck, and a tight black shirt was stretched across his stomach. He had forced himself into a faded pair of stonewash blue Levis, which must have looked very fashionable back in the days when Culture Club hadn't split up yet. Around his neck hung a gold pendant on a chunky chain, and in his hand he was holding a bottle of Gordon's gin.  
  
"Fucking hell ... it's Harry!" he bellowed, upon catching sight of them. "How's life in the Smoke?"  
  
"Bearable," said Harry, shaking Steve's hand. "Bearable."  
  
"And who is your young friend?"  
  
Draco bristled ... for one thing he was eight months older than Harry. "My name is Draco Malfoy," he said, in his frostiest, most imperious voice, which he usually only used on shop assistants in Harvey Nicks.  
  
Steve gave him a look that said 'weird fuck,' but said. "Draco ... that'd be Latin for dragon, surely?"  
  
"My parents were very into all that strange stuff," said Draco. "Wicca, magic, witchcraft, that sort of thing. Weirdoes, if you ask me."  
  
"Well, you're very welcome, Draco," said Steve. "Step inside, make yourself comfy, " he turned back to Harry. "Is he your new shag then? Finally come out of the closet?"  
  
"Hardly," said Harry. "We had a brief fling once, many years ago," he followed Steve into the flat, and kicked the door shut behind him. "I think we were both in it for the sex, mainly," Draco was making himself comfy on Steve's white leather sofa. There was an ultra-violent Kung Fu movie playing on the TV, dubbed from Chinese into English, so that the movement of the characters' lips did not synchronise with what they were saying, and the scary effect of the shirtless men circling one another in a disused warehouse was diminished.  
  
"Just in it for the sex, mainly," said Steve, somewhat dreamily. "Harry ... he's a fag's dream. I'd sell my Grandmother to the Iraqis just to be able to lick his thigh. I'd sell state secrets to the Russians for ten minutes with him in a vat of strawberry jelly."  
  
"You don't know any state secrets," said Harry.  
  
"I know the Queen doesn't go to the toilet ... ever."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, have you ever seen her?" asked Steve, grinning.  
  
"Anyway, you did sell your Grandmother," said Harry. "Back in 1998 ... you bought a Ford Escort Cabriolet and a new set of spark plugs."  
  
"I've another one somewhere," said Steve. "How many times did you do it then? If it isn't too personal?"  
  
"Six or seven," said Harry. "I am not gay, Steve, despite what you, and half the male population of Brighton apparently think. So leave off. I was experimenting. Everybody experiments."  
  
"But you can't deny you do have a very sexy scar. Look, can I get you a drink, Harry?"  
  
"I need something very strong," said Harry. "Give me a double vodka."  
  
"What with?"  
  
"Vodka."  
  
Harry followed Steve into the living room. It was furnished in typical working class boy made good style ... there was a lot of white, a massive wide-screen TV, a stereo with speakers that could have been taken from Stonehenge, and in an attempt to appear arty, an Andy Warhol print, the one with the different coloured Marilyn Monroes. He sat down on the sofa next to Draco, and it creaked under his weight.  
  
Steve came back into the room, holding several tall, thin shot glasses and a bottle of Pierre Smirnoff's finest, which he set down on the coffee table, scooping several back issues of the Guardian out of the way first.  
  
"Name your poison, Gentlemen," he said, flopping down on the sofa. "There's vodka or vodka."  
  
"That'll do nicely," said Draco, picking up one of the glasses, and filling it almost to the brim. Then he knocked it back in one gulp. He swallowed, and his face creased up in disgust; he closed his eyes and gnashed his teeth.  
  
"I swear that not in a million years will I ever get used to this stuff," said Draco.  
  
Steve smiled. "Yeah, well," he said. "I can get you some Coke to go with it, if you like?"  
  
"I don't like Coke," said Draco. "Unless Malibu is involved in some way."  
  
"Here is a man who knows his drinks," said Steve, turning to Harry, who nodded. "So, tell me, boys. What brings you down here at such a time?"  
  
"Harry got into trouble," said Draco, who had overheard their conversation. "Didn't you, Harry?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Yes, trouble," he said. "Some blokes wanted me to invest in a club. Turned out to be a trap, so we had to make a sharp exit. Thought it'd be best to come down here for a few days, till the fuss dies down. There might be a lot of people looking for me up in town. I'd rather not give them any reason to think they can find me."  
  
"Suits you to be here then?" asked Steve.  
  
"Very much," said Harry, pouring himself a shot of vodka. "Is that okay?"  
  
"I have a perfectly acceptable guest bedroom for you boys to use," said Steve, not noticing the look Draco shot Harry at that point. "I am, as you know, a sad and lonely bastard, and am always happy to have some company ... as long as you don't try and stop me drinking my arse into happy oblivion."  
  
"I spend rather a lot of time myself doing that," said Draco. "Amongst other things."  
  
"Draco is not only gay, but notoriously so," said Harry. "Isn't that so?"  
  
"A notorious homosexual in my flat?" said Steve. "I am honoured. I'd love to take you clubbing."  
  
"I wouldn't," said Draco. "I can't be held responsible for who I might have sex with."  
  
"You have to come clubbing in Brighton," said Steve. "It's all people come here to do. Just pick your genre; trance, cheese, UK garage, house. We cater to most tastes."  
  
Harry downed his second vodka, and reached for the bottle again. "Just don't let him take you to the Maze," he said. "It's crap. Especially on Fridays."  
  
"I'll bear that in mind," said Draco, shifting his weight on the sofa.  
  
**************  
  
"A monumental snafu, quite frankly," said Ron, glaring at the others. "That's what I think. You had them under your noses, and they got away."  
  
The addressees looked at their feet, and shuffled them.  
  
"It was the most simple thing, the tiniest little thing, and you let them get away!" Ron continued ranting, his face redder than usual, and his hair aflame under the soft office lights. "I couldn't have made it much easier for you if I'd given you a fucking net and told you to catch them in that!"  
  
"Sir ... we're, with respect ..."  
  
"With respect to what?" roared Ron. "You don't deserve any respect! They've fucked off. They're nowhere in London, we've had Chevron checking all the normal places for a good half hour now ... if they were anywhere in London, we'd know! So fuck knows where they've gone. In five minutes ... five minutes of appallingly bad work, you have blown what chance we had of getting them in here."  
  
"Sir ..."  
  
"Bones, you are on a charge. Cardwell, I don't even want to speak to you. Bugger off, and pray I'm in a better mood when your review comes up. Now, get out of my sight!"  
  
They left his office, and the other occupant of the room, a woman, stood up. "Don't you think that was unnecessarily harsh?" she asked.  
  
"Not in the slightest," said Ron, picking up his wand, which was lying on his desk, and tucking it inside his robes. He crossed the blue carpeted floor over to the window, which commanded a spectacular view of the vast parkland at the centre of wizarding London. However, not being in the mood for views, he drew the curtains shut hurriedly, and turned back to his desk.  
  
"Why don't you go home early?" said Ron. "There's nothing here for you to finish off."  
  
Jo Samways, his new secretary, gave him a withering look. "I thought we were going to go home together tonight. You said you were going to make me coffee, in the loosest possible way. You said your coffee was to die for."  
  
"Hot chocolate," said Ron. "Look, I'm not sure it's such a good idea. I'm very tired, I got no sleep last night, and Cameron will be there, and Ginny too."  
  
"You're concerned about your sister ruining your sex life?" said Jo, looking disappointed.  
  
Ron shook his head hurriedly. "Not as such," he said. "I'm just worried about the kid. What'll Hermione think?"  
  
"By all accounts, Hermione has been pretty busy since the divorce came through," said Jo. "And I don't mean work wise. You don't seem to realise that you aren't tied to that woman any more."  
  
"But I have a kid, I have responsibilities," began Ron.  
  
"And ... you think Cameron is going to care who you're shagging? Besides, I want to meet him. The way you're always going on about the poor boy, he sounds charming."  
  
"Well ... he is ... I just don't want him thinking you're his Mum."  
  
"Does he think that about every strange woman you bring home, Ronald?" asked Jo.  
  
"No, but ..."  
  
"Ron, I may be many things, but I am not out to hijack your child," said Jo firmly. "Now, you have been working for nearly thirty-six hours and have had only four hours sleep. We are going home and I am making you a nice hot drink. Do I make myself clear?"  
  
Ron sighed. "Let me just clear my desk ..."  
  
"Home, Ron."  
  
**************  
  
They walked down to the staff car park. The IBME building had numerous exits and entrances; besides the one on Diagon Alley, it also opened directly into the Muggle world, the entrance disguised as a garage door in a modern-looking office block just off Charing Cross Road, through which those officials, operatives and workers who lived amongst Muggles, arrived for work; it being more convenient than getting into wizarding London via any of the other routes, none of which could accommodate a car either.  
  
Ron's eyes were practically closed as he unlocked the door of his Saab, so Jo shooed him around to the passenger side, and she drove instead. He fell asleep as they were going over Hammersmith Bridge, which made changing gear slightly awkward, but she didn't mind. He woke up again as they drove through Richmond town centre.  
  
"Nearly there," she said to him. "You live in Teddington, don't you?"  
  
Ron nodded. "I'll direct you once we get through Twickenham," he said.  
  
Jo turned left onto St Margaret's Road. An R68 bus pulled out directly in front of them, causing her to brake sharply.  
  
"Arsehole!" she yelled, thumping the steering wheel.  
  
Ron said something that sounded like, "Wrstfgl."  
  
Jo said nothing for a couple more minutes, then she spoke. "You're pretty cut up about Draco and Harry, aren't you?"  
  
Ron nodded. "It isn't the fact that we lost them, it really isn't. It's the fact that those two incompetents, who don't even work for me, who don't have any idea what this operation means to me, fucked up and ruined it."  
  
"There's something else though, isn't there?" Jo went on. They were driving through central Twickenham.  
  
"Yeah, kind of," said Ron. "I don't know if I ought to tell you."  
  
Jo realised she was in the wrong lane, and hastily dived across to the far left of the road, causing the car following to hoot in indignation. "Shit, sorry!" she swore, bringing the car to a halt at the lights.  
  
"Mind my car," said Ron, frostily. The car they had cut up drew level with them, and the driver gave them a very dirty look.  
  
"Sorry, Ron. You were saying."  
  
"I said I don't know if I should tell you," Ron repeated. The lights went green, and the traffic moved off.  
  
"I might not be able to do my job as well as I should do if we don't have an honest working relationship," hinted Jo. "And I certainly won't be up to my usual high standards in the bedroom."  
  
Ron sighed. "Okay," he said. "Look, this goes no further ... did you ever find out the reason they expelled Harry from Hogwarts?"  
  
Jo shook her head. "Well, it was all hushed up. Didn't they say he attacked another pupil or something?"  
  
"That wasn't strictly true ..." began Ron.  
  
"Of course," Jo went on, oblivious to him. "None of you did anything to quash the rumour that he died. I was as surprised as hell when they told me ..."  
  
"Speaks volumes for the indoctrination process ... why else do you think the IBME operates in such secrecy?" said Ron. "Trust me, nobody outside of my Department, except a few of the bigwigs upstairs knows that Harry is still alive. And it works out better for us that it stays this way. For now, anyway. The bigwigs certainly aren't letting on, but that's because they want the media coup of saying Harry is alive and we've got him."  
  
"You mean he's working for you too?"  
  
"We hoped he might agree to," said Ron. "It would be useful to have an operative who can slide gracefully to the wrong side of the law should we need him to. And Harry has a wealth of experience of Muggles ... actually, we have some work planned for him."  
  
"I have a wealth of experience," began Jo. "I'm only half witch ..."  
  
"That's not the point," said Ron. "Harry has experience where it counts. Anyway, as to his expulsion, well, the rumour mill went into overdrive. The official reason, the line the school toed, and expected us to as well, was that it was general appalling behaviour. But Harry was by no means appallingly behaved at any point ... sure, he'd break a few rules to suit his purpose, but he wasn't an inherently bad kid. Not like Draco Malfoy. Now, the underground rumour was rape."  
  
Jo nearly crashed the car into a tree. "Rape?" she spluttered. "Come off it!"  
  
"No, seriously," said Ron. "There were a lot of rumours flying around after Harry left. They say he was caught with another boy ..."  
  
"That's not rape," laughed Jo. "That's just experimenting ... I thought most teenagers ..."  
  
"Not true," said Ron. "Not how the Hogwarts governors see it, anyhow. Rumour has it the other boy's Father walked in on them."  
  
Jo was still shaking her head in disbelief. "I refuse to believe Harry turned out to be gay," she was saying. "And you seem to be basing rather a lot of these assumptions in rumour, don't you think?"  
  
"Well, that was all unproven," said Ron. "Truth is, there was no real evidence, this boy's Father just happened to wield rather a lot of influence ... couldn't take the fact that his precious son was the one leading Harry astray, rather than the other way round. The other kid was taken out of school shortly after, though at the time we were told he'd been expelled, too ..."  
  
"This other kid would be Draco Malfoy, right?" asked Jo.  
  
Ron nodded. "Yeah, you saw the photo of him?"  
  
Jo nodded. "He could snap knicker elastic at fifty paces," she said.  
  
"If he was straight," said Ron.  
  
"You mean they really were sleeping together?"  
  
Ron nodded. "I didn't find out until the other day ... shit, love. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. But, well, I wanted to believe it wasn't true. Draco and Harry were ... sworn enemies," he stumbled to find the words. "They hated each other's guts. I was Harry's best friend, and then suddenly there were all these rumours flying around that they were having sex together. I didn't want to believe it. I kind of blanked it out ... went through my last years at Hogwarts in a sort of deniale d'affaire, to coin a nonexistent old French phrase I just made up," he added.  
  
"So tell me how you found out," said Jo. "This is steamy stuff. It would make a good trashy romance novel."  
  
"When we raided Harry's office, up in town, the other night," said Ron. "They brought back his old school trunk. He'd been keeping it there, and there were things that we wanted out of it. Important things, that Muggles shouldn't be allowed to have."  
  
"Harry's hardly a Muggle," said Jo.  
  
"Yeah, but, anyway. They brought the trunk in, and the stuff we were looking for wasn't there," said Ron. "Inside I found an old notebook of his. They didn't find any evidence of ... of his indiscretion at the time, purely because Harry made sure he took the evidence with him. It was all in there."  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"Drawings, scrawled notes, bits of poetry, turn left here," said Ron. "You know, the sort of thing."  
  
Jo turned left. "You mean, kind of like a secret diary?" she said.  
  
"Yes. Harry was always very good at drawing, see," said Ron. "He used to sketch us, up in the dormitory, or playing Quidditch, or doing whatever. Well, he'd been, how shall I put this, sketching Draco, too."  
  
"Flattering sketches?"  
  
Ron nodded. "They left very little to the imagination," he said. "I think that's when it finally hit home. All that time they were having a torrid affair right under my nose. That's what's pissing me off."  
  
"Don't let it," said Jo. "They were just having some fun, I expect. Nothing came of it."  
  
"I wish I had your confidence," said Ron. The car drew to a halt outside Ron's house. "It isn't just the sex, though I don't like gay people as much as the next man ..."  
  
"That's not very open-minded," said Jo.  
  
"That's how I think," said Ron. "I think it's wrong ... I don't object to them doing it ... I just, no ... nowhere near me, thanks."  
  
"If that's what you think," said Jo. "If it isn't the sex, what is it?"  
  
"The deceit," said Ron. "The fact Harry couldn't have told me about it. The fact that he lied to me."  
  
"So you have personal reasons for wanting to see him, as well as professional ones? Don't you think that kind of ... well, should put you off the case?"  
  
"I guess. But I'm not saying anything," he suddenly gave her an imploring look, as if afraid she was about to pick up the nearest phone and shop him to his superior.  
  
"Don't worry. My lips are sealed. But what," Jo asked, turning to face him, "will you do when you finally meet him again?"  
  
"I hadn't thought that far ahead," Ron admitted.  
  
"Evidently," said Jo. She opened the door, and climbed out of the car.  
  
Ron lived in a pleasant, tree-lined avenue, handy for the shops, and filled with substantial semi-detached homes built between the wars, with bay windows, double garages and pebble dash walls. The street was deserted, but the lights were on in most of the windows, including those in Ron's house.   
  
He climbed out of the car, and led Jo up to the front door. Ginny opened it just as he was about to unlock it. She was wearing Ron's slippers, and carrying a half-drunk mug of coffee.  
  
"You took your time," she said grumpily. Then she caught sight of Jo, standing behind him. "Oh, shit, sorry ... I didn't realise you had company."  
  
"S'okay," said Ron, stumbling groggily into the hallway and slipping off his shoes. "Is Cameron in bed?"  
  
"I read him two chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," said Ginny. "But he still wanted more. I only got him off to sleep about an hour ago. I've been watching Muggle telly ... some of the stuff they put on really is crap, isn't it?"  
  
The living room door was open, and through it Ron could see what programme was on. Carol Smilie and Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen were messing up some poor sod's house again. Sometimes he completely forgot that his familiarity with Muggle life was something completely alien to most magical folk.  
  
"Yeah," he agreed. "That particular programme is, indeed, crap. But sometimes the others are good."  
  
"I don't have a telly at home," Ginny explained to Jo. She drained her coffee. "Look ... I expect you two will be wanting to spend some time alone, so I'll be on my way."  
  
"Yeah, thanks," said Ron. "I'll drop in tomorrow. Tell Mum I have to cancel my trip to the States this weekend. So I will be able to come for dinner."  
  
"Oh, did your work fall through?"  
  
"Someone fouled up," said Ron. "So there's no point in us going if we can't supply the Yanks with the goods. Anyway, we won't miss anything."  
  
Ginny struggled into her coat, and kissed Ron on the cheek. "I'll see you Sunday then," she said. "Bye."  
  
She raised her wand, and with a puff, she Disapparated.  
  
Ron turned to Jo. "Bloody Harry. Do you still want some hot chocolate?" he asked.  
  
"I thought hot chocolate was a euphemism," said Jo, sliding her coat off her shoulders and giving him that seductive glance; the one she knew from two months of lovemaking that he could not resist.  
  
"Hot chocolate is a euphemism, as I don't ... actually ... have ... any," said Ron. "Is that technically legal?" he asked, taking in the flattering contours of her dress.  
  
"I'm your secretary, you tell me," said Jo, slipping a bare arm slowly around his neck. "If you think it violates our professional relationship, then I won't wear it again."  
  
"I think I can cope if you do," said Ron. "Would you like me to go and buy some hot chocolate? There's a twenty four hour Budgens round the corner."  
  
"Skip the drinks," said Jo. "Do you have any Haagen-Dazs?"  
  
"Sorry, Cameron only likes Ben & Jerry's," said Ron. "Chocolate chip cookie dough, to be exact."  
  
Jo smiled. "We'll forego the part where you lick melting ice cream off my stomach, then," she said. "Never mind, there's always next time. Now, what I would like would be to spend the next two hours making passionate love to you on a fluffy sheepskin rug in front of a roaring fire ... the kind you get in Alpine resort hotels. However, you don't have a fire."  
  
"I don't have a sheepskin rug, either," said Ron. Jo ran a hand through his red hair, then down his face to his shirt. Her fingers were light and delicate against his skin.  
  
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I'll just take the passionate love bit," she undid the top two buttons of his shirt. Ron reciprocated by undoing the zip on the back of the dress she was wearing. He ran his fingers down her back  
  
"That feels nice," she whispered, brushing his hair out of the way and kissing him on the neck.  
  
"Not here," said Ron, slipping the dress slowly off her shoulders. "Cameron might wake up."  
  
Jo moaned indignantly. "You're so conventional," she said. "What's the strangest place you've ever done it?"  
  
"On a broomstick," said Ron, truthfully. "It was quite hard to balance, though, and there was nowhere to hang our clothes."  
  
Jo undid the rest of the buttons on his shirt, and slid it gently off of him. Then she rested her head against his chest. "If I said I wanted you on the kitchen table?"  
  
"I would suggest there are better places," said Ron. "Now kiss me, and then we can go upstairs."  
  
**************  
  
They put Harry to bed in Steve's spare room; he was drunk beyond compare and mumbling something incoherent about lumberjacks being okay. They peeled off his clothes, and tucked him in under the duvet. Draco stayed on to make sure he didn't do anything stupid whilst Steve went to set up the sofa bed in the living room. Eventually, Harry drifted off, and eventually, so did Draco, sitting in a chair over by the window. When Steve looked in twenty minutes later, he thought it best not to wake either of them, and so went off to bed himself.  
  
Draco woke up again at about two thirty in the morning. Harry was snoring softly to himself, one hand draped casually across his own chest, and the other hanging limply off the side of the bed. From somewhere nearby, he could hear fire engines, sirens blaring, but it did not concern him. The clouds had cleared, and there was moonlight slanting in through the sash window.  
  
His back ached, and he felt dizzy, although the dreaded hangover he was anticipating had failed to materialise yet; a good thing, on the whole. He stood up, his shadow falling across Harry's face, which appeared milky white in the moonlight.  
  
Harry slept on, oblivious.  
  
Draco, thought to himself; what harm could it do? He sat down on the bed next to Harry, causing the mattress to sag and the whole structure to creak alarmingly. Hurriedly, he stood up again. He had a thing about creaky beds.  
  
The movement caused Harry to stir. He rolled over, taking most of the duvet with him, and mumbled. "That you, Victoria?" he mumbled, his voice slurred, the words not coming out clearly.  
  
Draco sat down on the bed again. "Um, you okay, Harry?" he asked.  
  
"Fine thanks, darling," slurred Harry. "Why you awake?"  
  
"Someone got a bit drunk," said Draco, softly. "I'm just making sure you don't do anything silly."  
  
"Oh, okay," said Harry. "Do that thing you do," he said.  
  
"Um, what thing?" asked Draco, his voice trembling slightly, it never entering his head for a moment to disillusion his friend that he was not Victoria.  
  
"You know," slurred Harry. "That thing, with my ear."  
  
"Tell me what I like to do with your ear, Harry," said Draco, heat rising in his body at the very thought of just what Harry might like to have done with his ear.   
  
"Are you being silly?" snorted Harry. "You like to nibble on it."  
  
"Oh yes, I do," said Draco, whose heart was pumping fit to bust. Slowly, and strangely feeling almost as sick as he had done that first time, all those years ago, he leant over Harry, and gently applied his lips to his ear, licking the smooth skin.  
  
"Mmm," murmured Harry. "That's very nice."  
  
"Oh yes," agreed Draco, tickling the earlobe with his tongue. "Very nice indeed."  
  
"You don't sound like Victoria," murmured Harry, the muscles in his shoulder and back relaxing a little.  
  
Draco eased his own T-shirt over his head, and shifted his weight on the bed.  
  
"How do you mean?" Draco asked, his voice slightly muffled - having a mouthful of Harry's ear might have had something to do with that.  
  
"You sound more like Draco," giggled Harry. Draco froze, suddenly feeling very guilty, and wondering, as he did at moments like this, whether Catholicism might be an option. "Are you Draco?"  
  
"Um," said Draco. His hands eased the duvet slowly off Harry, exposing the lines of his shoulders, the moon casting his body in delicate shadows.  
  
"I've not had sex with Draco for ages," giggled Harry. "Are you Draco?"  
  
"Not usually," said Draco, who was fairly confident that Harry was still too drunk to remember anything in the morning, and was also enjoying himself too much to stop now. He put his hand on Harry's back.  
  
"So who are you now?" asked Harry.  
  
"How about your secret admirer?" said Draco, his mouth finally releasing Harry's ear as he slid his lips down Harry's exposed neck, applying his tongue liberally, and moved closer, sliding his hand between Harry's arm and torso  
  
"I'm too pissed to have sex," mumbled Harry. "And I won't remember any of it in the morning," he moaned.  
  
"That can only be a good thing," whispered Draco, fiddling with the buttons on his own fly. "Isn't guilt free sex wonderful?"  
  
"Yes," agreed Harry. "It is very nice," he hiccupped. Draco wriggled out of his jeans and let them fall to the floor. Then he lifted up the duvet, and slid into bed beside Harry. He knew he should be feeling very guilty. He knew Harry would kill him in the morning, but it didn't seem to matter.  
  
Harry sighed as Draco applied his lips gently to the nape of his neck; he reached over to reciprocate, and ran his hand slowly down Draco's chest to his waist, and lower ...  
  
**************  
  
Ron opened one eye, and checked his alarm clock. It was nearly three in the morning. Usually he was a sound sleeper, but there was something not quite right.  
  
He threw off the covers, and climbed out of bed. He walked over to the window, and parted the curtains, looking out. The street outside was just as it always was; his car was parked at the kerb, the dustbins put out ready to be collected the next day. The whole scene was bathed in a familiar orange glow from the streetlamps.  
  
So what was bothering him? He turned back to the bed. Jo was lying on the side where Hermione used to sleep, her head turned gently round to the left, her hand outstretched on the pillow next to her, palm up, fingers grasping for something nonexistent. She looked very peaceful.  
  
Ron sat down on the bed again, and drew the covers up around himself. He turned to look again at the sleeping form of his girlfriend, and reached out to stroke her hair, which was long and brown and very smooth indeed. He found himself taking it in his hands, and letting it fall through his fingers like grains of sand. She did not stir.  
  
He wondered what Harry was doing right now.  
  
**************  
  
Draco lay on his side, Harry's body pressed against him. The digital clock on the bedside table said four a.m. Harry had simply rolled over and gone right back to sleep afterwards. Draco had not been entirely certain he had been fully aware of what was going on. He hadn't made any attempt at resistance, which Draco assumed meant it was okay.  
  
And he had appeared to be enjoying himself; certainly he had been vocal, his breathless moans adorning the pleasure of doing what Draco had been longing to do for such a very long time.  
  
Draco draped his arm across Harry's chest, sat up, and reached for the glass of water he had placed by his side. He drank deeply, relishing the water as it trickled down his dry throat. Then he set down the glass, and looked down at Harry. Harry looked sated, calm and happy ... his forehead was still covered with a thin glaze of sweat, and marking his neck and chest were the red marks Draco's kisses had left.  
  
Draco had had lovers since leaving school, the first ... he recalled, at least, the first after Harry had been called Sebastian, and despite the sex, which had been wonderful, he had felt that it had lacked something, something very fundamental. Second on the list of boyfriends had been Dave, a gas meter reader from Basingstoke, who had really just been looking for something slender and pliant to be rough and nasty with. This was not what Draco had had in mind, and so Dave had been dispatched with swiftness. His first legal one ... when he was eighteen, had been Jack, who, with the aid of a tub of illegally purloined Viagra, had been responsible for some of the most productive evenings of Draco's life. The list ran on ... Derek, Casey the American student, Graham, Jimmy, all the way through to Julian and Marcus, and of course the countless one night stands and hedonistic fumbling at clubs.  
  
But all of them had not satisfied him. He had always secretly longed to have Harry back. Harry had been his first, after all. If he put his mind to it, he could still recall that very night, vividly passionate, as if it was only yesterday.  
  
He wondered why he felt like this. He'd had so many others since - but none of them had ever made him feel the way Harry did so effortlessly, even when he was very drunk and wasn't entirely sure who he was having sex with.  
  
Why should it be like that? What was wrong with him?  
  
A/N  
  
In part four of Snitch! Ron's still struggles to come to terms with his discovery and his anger. And will Harry find out what happened? Coming soon, to a theatre near you!  
  
Lots of wonderful people reviewed part two, I hooked some new reviewers, which is nice to see ... so welcome on board! I am still amazed that nobody has flamed me for this, though I doubt that'll last much longer! In order then, thanks, hugs and schnoogles go out to the following ...  
  
The betas ... Rhysenn (who upped the slash content here a bit ... schnoogles for Rhysenn) and Viola (who I take malicious delight in torturing with multiple fics)  
  
The reviewers ... Saitaina A. Moricia, Rain in Fire, Parker (I saw Guys And Dolls many years ago, but don't remember much about it, perhaps I should see if Blockbuster have it in ... and nice to have you aboard), pantalaimon (Hermione's relationships will become much clearer come Part 4), Kei, Simon (if still on board, somehow I doubt it anymore), Mrs Weasley (Chelsea, bleuch ... far be it from me to start a football war in my reviews column, but Arsenal rule!), Alicia/Sue (I wasn't thinking of Frank N. Furter specifically, but now you mention it, Slut!Draco is based partly on a gay friend of mine, and partly on Julian Clary, a camp British comedian), Flourish, Catriona Snape, dani, Zoe, Hydra/Serpentese, Cassandra Claire (you seem to be a militant Draco/Harry shipper these days), sherlock03, Melpomene, darkangel, Amanita Lestrange, minx, Karina, heidi tandy, Abby Stiles (can't say much in favour of Newcastle Utd either, I'm afraid), Teek (you have the coolest email address ever, I think I'll email you just so I can write it in the address box), Laetitia Prism, carissa, kath, Crymson Tyrdrop, Lovely Angels, Some person, Jocetta (bloody as an adjective ... I use it all the time :)), Gwendolyn Grace, Arnica, Lily (ah, but I did make Draco gay), Wynster McG, kinneo Sage (FFN deletes swearwords like that, so the review looked quite funny, couldn't work out if it was a flame or not), Juniper, Destiny, Noctua, Sachiko Barton, rave, Felicitas, Unicorn Chick, wingedkeys, Lady Neptune, Blue Butterfly, finite and Dervish.   



	4. The Magical Mystery Tour.

SNITCH!  
  
A/N  
  
This story contains sexually explicit language and sequences in both straight and same sex relationships, including slash. If you find this in any way offensive; then that's fine, I respect that. Please respect this story, its author and readers by not reading any further if this applies to you.  
  
The majority of the characters, concepts and locations in this story are owned exclusively by J.K. Rowling and assorted other businesses. I recognise that I have no rights or claims to any of these characters. This project has no commercial benefit to me whatsoever.  
  
Apologies to Lori ... I used one of your jokes. I'll go punish myself afterwards. Apologies to Cassie too, there's another cameo, but it isn't quite as bad as Dracaena Draco ... stay tuned for further cameos in Part 5.  
  
Schnoogles to the reviewers of part three, and as ever, the credits come thick and fast at the end!  
  
PART FOUR. THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR.  
  
When Harry woke up in the morning, his hangover from the vodka was pounding inside his skull like a jackhammer, worse than anything he had ever felt before. For a minute or so, he just lay there, moaning softly to himself and clutching his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, and to remain sleeping for a very long time.   
  
He glanced over at the bedside clock. It was coming up to twelve thirty. He could hear movement in the kitchenette next door, the sounds of frying bacon and loud, out of tune humming. Steve must already be up, he thought.  
  
He opened his eyes, and winced as light flooded in. A fresh wave of pain overcame him, and he gasped in strained agony. He felt weird.  
  
God, what happened to me last night?  
  
He became aware that the covers, the cotton bed sheets and duvet were all tangled around his body in an impenetrable mess. He felt awkward, yet at the same time, strangely satisfied, and very calm. He shifted his weight on the mattress, and lay back amongst the pillows, willing the pain in his head to go away.  
  
And then he realised that someone was lying in the bed with him, watching him through half closed eyes.  
  
"Good morning," beamed Draco. "I trust we had pleasant dreams?"  
  
Harry recoiled instantly. "Draco ... what the fuck are you doing in bed with me?"  
  
"So you don't remember. I rather hoped you would remember," said Draco, looking disappointed.  
  
Harry shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Remember what?" he asked, even though he fancied he already knew the answer, and responses were running through his beleaguered, hung-over mind nineteen to the dozen. I couldn't ... I'm ... I'm straight. I have a nice, normal sex life. I don't go for that kind of thing. It's just ... weird.  
  
But another little voice in the back of his mind was telling him otherwise. Didn't you enjoy it the first time? Wasn't it good then, with Draco, and with the other one? You were perfectly happy to let yourself be taken.  
  
That was then!  
  
So was last night, Harry.  
  
He found himself looking into Draco's eyes. Very grey. Slowly, the words taking time to form in his mouth, he spoke. "Please say we didn't?"  
  
Draco nodded. "Didn't you enjoy it?"  
  
Harry put his hand to his forehead ... as always happened when he had had too much to drink, his scar was aching worst of all. "Draco ... I don't even remember it."  
  
"Let me remind you."  
  
Before Harry could reply, Draco leant forwards, and very gently kissed him. Just as he had the first time, all those years before, Harry felt a strange kind of heat rising within his body ... something he never felt with anyone else. He pushed Draco away.  
  
"Stop it! Fucking stop it! What do you think you're doing?"  
  
"You weren't like this last night," said Draco softly, almost sadly. "I really think you need reminding."  
  
"No!"  
  
"Why not? You're unattached ... it isn't like you're betraying anybody," said Draco, scooting closer to Harry, whose heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest. In spite of himself, he could feel adrenaline coursing through his veins ... that familiar sensation, and Draco's touch lightly brushing against his chest, his hands sweeping across his sides, down his back, feeling in an altogether more private area.  
  
"Don't pretend, Harry," whispered Draco. Harry could feel his tongue at his neck.  
  
"Stop it," his hands were frozen to his sides, and he could feel Draco pressing against him, and he felt sick, and very ashamed. But he did not do anything. He did not move.  
  
"Kiss me back ... see how it feels."  
  
"Draco!"  
  
"What exactly are you fighting?" asked Draco, his breathing becoming faster. "Remember back then? You used to love our sordid interludes."  
  
"I was sixteen, Draco," Harry protested, knowing as he did so that his entreaties were feeble, that he would eventually give in. "You're living in a fucking time-warp. I was experimenting ... everybody experiments."  
  
"That's not what I heard," breathed Draco, huskily.  
  
"I don't know what you mean ..."  
  
"I heard you, Harry Potter. You may be a different man now ... but really, you're still the same. Nothing changes. Last night proved that to me. You loved it, you were begging me not to stop ..."  
  
"I was not!"  
  
"But I think you were."  
  
Before Harry could reply, Draco had rolled him over onto his back. "What say we give it another go?" he asked, releasing Harry briefly.  
  
Harry felt tainted, violated, as he had done all those years before. Had he enjoyed it? Last night ... he couldn't remember. He could remember the other times ... but surely they had been what Draco had said; merely sordid interludes.  
  
"Harry?"  
  
"I don't want to," said Harry weakly.  
  
Draco propped himself up on his elbows. "Just once?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Just for little old me."  
  
"What ... no ... what will everyone else say? I have contacts ... business ..." he was cut off by Draco, who lunged at him, taking his mouth in a kiss so sudden that Harry felt the breath knocked from within him.  
  
And after that ... he didn't resist.  
  
**************  
  
Ron had been at work for some time, dictating letters to, variously, the Chevron operatives in the United States, the Arch-Chancellor and the Head of Internal Affairs. Each of these letters contained a long, rambling apology on behalf of his department, and assurances that those responsible were being dealt with harshly. This meant Bones had been sent back to the Aurors in Barking, and Cardwell reduced to chauffeuring diplomats around London. He had also spent the morning avoiding Jo, although he wasn't entirely sure why that should be, given they had woken up that morning in the same bed.  
  
At about twenty past two, the local branch of Chevron reported that there was still no sighting of Harry or Draco. It appeared they had left London. Ron could have killed someone at that point, and he sent a tersely worded memo around his department to cheer himself up, before starting on his seventh coffee of the day. Then he had rung Chevron on his mobile to complain, and the people operating Chevron had not realised who he was, and had gotten cross with him, and he had been told just where he could put his opinions by a most impolite young lady.  
  
At three o'clock, Remus arrived back from his working lunch. He and several other representatives from the Department of Overseas Operations had been ostensibly discussing their priorities, or 'networking' as Remus liked to call it. This meant that they had retired to the nearest pub on Diagon Alley, and had a large meal involving copious quantities of chips, several tankards of butterbeer and a sticky pudding with custard, whilst coming up with ways to make their expense accounts look smaller.  
  
Ron looked up as Remus entered the office. "How was your meeting?" he asked.  
  
Remus slung his cloak at the stand in the corner. He missed by two feet.  
  
"Not bad," he said, picking up the cloak and hanging it up properly. "We networked extensively," he added.  
  
"That's nice," said Ron.  
  
"We prioritised objectives and standardised our practice," he went on. "It was very interesting. What have you been doing?"  
  
Ron was about to say, 'Getting very angry with people who don't deserve my wrath,' but decided against it, and said instead, "Nothing much. I'm not very fast moving or dynamic these days."  
  
Remus sat down on the other side of the desk. "Want to talk about it?" he asked.  
  
Ron shrugged. "Well, I'm still pissed off about Harry," he said.  
  
"Understandable. You've been trailing him for ages and then some transfers from another department fuck up your operation."  
  
"It isn't Bones and Cardwell ... it really isn't Bones and Cardwell," said Ron. "I just feel like I've been out chasing windmills myself. The last two years, ever since I graduated and Sirius took me on, through all that, and at the culmination of it, when we're springing the trap that we spent so long preparing, it all goes haywire. I end up looking like a tit and the entire department gets a rap on the knuckles from the Arch-Chancellor."  
  
"You oughtn't to blame yourself, you know," said Remus, leaning back in his leather swivel chair, making the mechanism creak under his weight. "It just wasn't to be this time."  
  
"That doesn't make it any better," said Ron, reaching for his coffee mug. It had 'To the World's Best Dad' written on it ... a Father's Day present from Cameron, three years earlier. Hermione had bought it, obviously. It was one of the few things of hers he had kept.  
  
"I just want to know that he's okay," Ron went on, softly and very unexpectedly.  
  
Remus raised his eyebrows. "Hello, reality check on aisle six please? You do know he's okay. You've been following him around for the last two years. And they wouldn't have promoted you to Head of Department if they didn't think you were doing sterling work."  
  
"They promoted me over you," said Ron darkly.  
  
"But like the Murphy's, I'm not bitter," said Remus. "Look, that whole promotion thing, it doesn't matter. To be honest I couldn't cope with the hours thing."  
  
"They only did it because they thought I'd be able to get close to Harry," said Ron. "Fucking lot of good that did them then, isn't it?" he looked up, as if expecting Remus to agree with him. As if wanting Remus to agree with him.  
  
Remus shrugged, and shook his head. "You're going to carry on beating yourself up over this no matter what I say. Would you rather go home? Get some rest. I'll cover for you ..."  
  
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Jo, looking flustered and annoyed about something, and bearing under her arm several foolscap plastic files.  
  
"Problems?" asked Ron.  
  
Jo set the files down on his desk. "These are the briefs from the Malone case," she said. "1992 to 1996, just like you asked. And the ART just got back from Harry's flat. Looks like we might have found him without resorting to Chevron. They've got some stuff in the bay downstairs they want to show you. Important stuff. Looks like the fish might have taken the bait."  
  
**************  
  
Draco kissed Harry one last time, and then clambered slowly out of bed, stretching as he did so. Harry watched as he padded over to the window, opened the curtains, and stretched again.  
  
"People will see you," he said, half-heartedly.  
  
Draco turned back to face him. "Let them," he said. "I have just had sex with Harry Potter. The Queen Mum could be watching and I wouldn't care."  
  
Harry put his hand to his forehead again. His whole body felt sticky, and wet with a fine film of sweat. Yet at the same time ...  
  
"I don't know how I let you talk me into this," he said.  
  
"Probably because I am damn sexy ... and no man or woman could refuse my charms," said Draco, returning to staring out of the window. Without warning, he lifted the sash, and Harry felt the cold breeze wafting into the room, carrying away the strange, musky smell.  
  
"I don't think I'll bother getting dressed," said Draco.  
  
"What are you going to do then?" asked Harry.  
  
"I'm going to come back to bed and spend the afternoon making love to ... what?" he asked, catching the expression on Harry's face. "Don't start that again."  
  
Blustery afternoon sunlight was falling through the window, casting Draco's form in bright light on one side, and dark shadow on the other. Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed, and groped blindly on the floor for wherever it was Draco had left his boxer shorts.  
  
"No," he said. "We are not having sex again."  
  
"Oh, Harry," moaned Draco.  
  
"I'm going to have a shower," said Harry firmly. "And then we'll have something to eat. Do you want to have a look round town?"  
  
"I want to have sex again," grumbled Draco.  
  
"You're too horny for your own good," snapped Harry. With that, he got up, and stalked out of the bedroom. A moment later, Draco heard Steve shouting something, and Harry shouted something back, and then the bathroom door slammed.  
  
"Shit, shit, shit," said Draco, kicking the wall, which thudded, as if it was hollow.  
  
What to do? To him, it was evident Harry had enjoyed himself ... more than he had been letting on. But then again. He had been vociferous in his opposition ... but at the same time when they had made love ... Harry was capable of such tenderness and ... it was too confusing.  
  
Never in his life had any boyfriend succeeded in reducing Draco to such a state of random confusion. He stood, staring out of the bedroom window for a couple of moments more, until he realised that someone in one of those tall townhouses opposite might very well be watching; indeed, knowing his luck it would be an elderly lady who kept cats and called the police if her neighbour didn't take in the milk in the mornings, and so he turned away hastily to look for his dressing gown.  
  
**************  
  
Ron flashed his identity card at the guard standing by the door, and tucked it back into the pocket of his robe.  
  
"Confirm that please, sir?" said the guard, staring straight ahead.  
  
Ron sighed, and put his eyeball up against the metal housing on the wall. A green light winked. It was a rare day when the guards down at the Evidence Room did let someone through without using the retinal scan. Whoever had suggested adopting certain facets of Muggle technology deserved to be at the bottom of the Thames with weights tied to their feet.  
  
"Thank you, Commodore Weasley," said the guard, pulling the door open for him. They stepped into the Evidence Room, where several large boxes of stuff had been placed on a central table. Around the table, seated on chairs that must have looked comfy when designed, were the rest of Ron's team.  
  
"Are we all here?" asked Ron, scanning around the room for any missing persons. "I'd better take a register."  
  
"We're all here, sir," said Xenia.  
  
"Nevertheless," said Ron. "Miss Onatopp. I would like to check. Do we have Doctor Claire with us?"  
  
"Right here, sir," said Doctor Claire. "Came as quick as I could."  
  
"Thank you Cassie," said Ron, ticking off her name on the pad. "Avon Tyrell and Strickland Abbas ... yeah, I can see you guys. Where's Neville?"  
  
"On his way, sir," said Cassie, brightly. "He got a little tied up with some business."  
  
"That would be a euphemism for sex, would it?" asked Ron. Cassie blushed.  
  
"He's rediscovering himself," said Xenia, helpfully. "With that tart from Research and Development; Emma Wilkinson."  
  
"It's good to know, isn't it, that even when we're in the middle of an important operation," said Ron, "good old Neville can still make the time to satisfy his primeval urges. If he isn't here in five minutes, he's on a charge."  
  
"Ooh, that's not fair, sir," said Cassie. "He's only doing what you would in the same circumstances ..."  
  
"That's as maybe," said Ron, shooting Jo a knowing glance. Jo looked away hurriedly, and blushed to the roots of her perfect hair.  
  
"And you have to admit," said Xenia. "Ms. Wilkinson is hot."  
  
One and all turned to stare at here in amazement. "Well, she is, I'm merely stating a fact, instead of allowing myself to be overcome by anything quite as sordid as sex."  
  
"This from the woman who bedded two Death Eaters in an attempt to get to the heart of the Silver Serpent Cult," snorted Cassie.  
  
"That was professionalism," said Xenia. "They had vital information which I thought could best be yielded by ..."  
  
"Getting into their pants," Cassie finished the sentence for her.  
  
"That's one way of putting it," snarled Xenia. "Let us not forget the, oh, three lovers you had on the rebound from Sirius Black ..."  
  
The entire room had fallen silent. Cassie looked very angry. "Don't dare speak his name," she hissed. "Don't you dare speak of him that way in front of me."  
  
"Come on, Cassie," said Ron, stepping in. "It isn't worth it ..."  
  
Cassie rounded on him. "He's dead, damn it," she snapped. "She shouldn't speak of him like that. He was a good man."  
  
"Okay, okay," said Ron. "Just calm down, yeah? You're not at your best when you get all flustered. Xenia, just leave off for a while, okay?"  
  
Xenia glared at them; her Russian temper was legendary in the corridors of the IBME building, and people had been known to hide behind rubber plants when she passed by. However, she said nothing, and allowed Ron to continue.  
  
"Right," he said, shuffling his papers on the table in an attempt to look vaguely like he had a clue what he was going to say. "We, um, didn't find what we were looking for at Harry's office."  
  
"Remind us just what we were looking for at Harry's office," cut in Xenia harshly. Ron knew she was very angry at having been transferred from International Surveillance to Domestic, but for her to pour cold water on their work constantly was just too much to bear. He had already filed a report on her to the Arch-Chancellor.  
  
"We think he might have something we want."  
  
"And what might that be? If it was a thaumic accelerator, or something of that ilk," said Xenia, "then I could probably just about see the point. As it is, you seem rather desperate to prove he's been sleeping with this Draco Malfoy character."  
  
The others all looked at their feet and shuffled them. Ron looked slightly defeated. "We already know that he is ... was," he corrected himself hastily.  
  
"And what would Harry be doing with a thaumic accelerator in his linen closet?" asked Remus. He caught a death ray glance from Cassie, which silenced him soon enough.  
  
"He could be plotting to destroy the fabric of the known universe," said Xenia defensively. Everybody else gave her a withering look. Besides being irritating, short-tempered and critical of everything that did not live up to her exacting standards, she also did not know when best to let go of a concept.  
  
Ron sighed. "But he isn't," he said. "There's no evidence to suggest that."  
  
"Someone is," said Xenia.  
  
"Yes, and when that someone is caught, it will not be us doing the catching," said Ron. "If you'd like to be transferred to the Department of Certain Death then I'd be only too happy to recommend you, Miss Onatopp."  
  
This seemed to shut her up a bit. Ron opened the folders he had brought down with him, and pulled out an enlarged photo. Avon coughed at that point.  
  
"Thaumic accelerator ... a what now?"  
  
"Some kind of device," said Ron. "I don't know what it does. Magic and metaphysics are very closely related ... I imagine it has something to do with particles."  
  
"I majored with a BAM in Eldritch Lace-Making," hinted Avon. "With Geo-Psychology and French. I do not do particle physics ..."  
  
"The thaum is the basic elemental unit of magic," said Cassie, sighing as though she was roundly sick of having to explain this to everyone. "It can be split into five sub-particles, known in the trade as flavours; up, down, sideways, sex appeal and peppermint. The purpose of a thaumic accelerator is to bombard an item with magical particles."  
  
"What for?"  
  
"To see what happens to it," said Cassie. "Physicists aren't especially original people. They like blowing things up and such ..."  
  
"Thanks for the science lesson, Cassie," said Ron, glaring at her. "If we can get on now, please?"  
  
His team shuffled their collective feet.  
  
"This," Ron said, holding it up so that the team could see it, "is a photo of Wilbur Malone, taken in 1996. We know that Mr. Malone here was involved in the Muggle criminal underworld for quite some time. Indeed, we are aware that he has been supplying guns to several gangland elements, in particular dear old Harry."  
  
"But what Harry doesn't realise ..." prompted Remus.  
  
"... is that Mr. Malone is actually a half-blood wizard," said Ron. "Exactly. Mr. Malone here has been leading the Muggle police a very merry dance around London since 1974. He controls several legitimate business houses, a couple of seedy bookshops in Soho, and a clearing warehouse for a Dutch company, through which he runs the second largest pornography racket in Western Europe."  
  
"Who runs the first?" asked Cassie.  
  
"Harry," said Ron simply, "actually. We know that Harry knows Malone personally ... we also know that Malone has been out of the loop for so long that the possibility he knows who, or what Harry is, is very low indeed."  
  
"And Harry's in danger?"  
  
"Something like that," said Ron. "Harry may well be about to get entangled in something that will involve us all. This is the last point at which we can stop him, and turn him round ..."  
  
"Don't you think he's too far gone for that to have any effect?" asked Remus.  
  
Ron looked down. "I don't know," he said, as if with difficulty. "I found some things out about Harry that I never knew before. I ... I found out he'd been lying to me, and that he'd been ..."  
  
"This probably isn't the time or the place," hinted Cassie. "We think not. We've been running a psychoanalysis of him. We think he's probably very confused, and still trying to carve out a niche for himself."  
  
"It's a common reaction amongst wizards who get stranded between the worlds," said Ron. "As Avon will testify."  
  
Avon Tyrell nodded. "But carry on, Cassie."  
  
Cassie grinned. "Okay, so, Harry has been out of the loop for more than five years now. Neither world ever accepted him for the person he thinks he is. This is why he's seeking to justify himself through infamy, because fame didn't work out for him."  
  
"That's clever reasoning," said Avon, at which Xenia laughed scornfully.  
  
"Thank you," said Cassie, shooting Xenia a venomous look. "I think with a little work, we could have Harry right and back within no time. That's an optimistic approach, but hey, I'm optimistic, so sue me."  
  
**************  
  
Harry and Draco walked along the seafront, Harry pointing out some of the more interesting buildings and describing their histories as they walked. The sun had come out, and although there was a strong wind blowing in off the Channel, there were people out in force. Mothers pushing buggies, gangs of kids let out of school, and here and there people were actually sitting on the shingle beach.  
  
"You should see it in summer," said Harry, sensing Draco was watching the proceedings with interest. "It gets really chilled out. It's nice."  
  
"They must be nuts," said Draco. "I'm freezing," and as if to emphasise his point, he plunged his hands deeper into his trouser pockets. He was wearing a very thick winter jacket with fake fur bits on it.  
  
"That building went up in the twenties," said Harry, pointing to a large tower block that looked very out of place amidst the regency townhouses. "It was the lap of luxury, but it's falling to bits now."  
  
"Why don't they do something about it?" asked Draco, staring up at the vast, white fronted block.  
  
"The bloke who owns it owns half of Brighton," said Harry. "He's just built himself a vast mansion just down the coast, near Newhaven, but they say he won't allow anybody to do any work to it. He's just neglecting it."  
  
"That's rotten," said Draco with feeling.  
  
"Oh, I don't know. It's an ugly building ... looks ridiculous," said Harry. "Do you know why Brighton wasn't bombed during the War?"  
  
Draco shrugged. "Why not?" he asked.  
  
"Local legend has it that Hitler wanted to live in the Royal Pavilion, once he'd invaded, so he ordered them to leave it well alone."  
  
"Nice of him, in an admittedly twisted way," said Draco.  
  
They walked on in silence. They were passing a paddling pool, empty for the winter and filled with dead leaves, when Draco said, "All this is by way of denying that we slept together last night, isn't it?"  
  
"What do you mean?" asked Harry.  
  
"This guided tour of the delights of Brighton's fair city," said Draco. "It's a complete load of bollocks. You think I give a toss who built what when? I'm a twenty three year old hedonist and a gangster's stooge ..."  
  
"Don't call me a gangster."  
  
"Well, you bloody are," Harry looked offended at this, and Draco softened his tone. "Look, I just ... I just think there's something between us, some kind of chemistry, that, correct me if I'm wrong, is a beautiful and all-round lovely thing to have going on."  
  
"I don't know," said Harry, looking hurriedly away. "I'm confused. Yesterday I was straight ... today I find I'm having sex with my best friend."  
  
"You never called my your best friend before. I'm flattered. But look ... if it makes you feel any better, a couple of shags doesn't necessarily make you gay," Draco said. "Hell, sexuality isn't something I think you can define as easily as society makes out. It's symptomatic of humanity's desire to classify everything into neat little pigeonholes, and by doing this, implying that one thing, in this case a straight lifestyle, is better than the other, a gay lifestyle, for instance. Both have their benefits, both have their drawbacks."  
  
"Shit, that was deep."  
  
Draco grinned. "Too deep ... I shall have to eat in a Kentucky Fried Chicken at least twice to atone for my outburst of lucidity."  
  
"You're right though."  
  
"I'm always right," said Draco. "Bisexuality is much more common than people make out ... and there are gay people who are prejudiced against bisexuals for not being able to make up their minds, which is also a load of crap ... that's bollocks, it's reverse bigotry. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter either way. What makes you gay is a set of inherently biological processes as far as I am concerned. The biological sex act is entirely natural. However, society constructs an elaborate web of explanations to account for it, and that's what defines a gay person. In that respect, it is a choice to be gay ... but not to how appealing you find gay sex."  
  
"You're being confusing," said Harry.  
  
"Okay, so, having sex with another man, for you, does not mean you are gay," said Draco. "Being gay is the result of social conditioning, it's a set of characteristics defined by society to account for a biological condition, and the degree to which people feel able to follow this is the ... well, it's how gay they are. With me?"  
  
"I think so."  
  
"You might call it a stereotype ... and there are three gay stereotypes, as we all know," said Draco. "At one end of the spectrum are the trendy, drug taking, disco dancing, tight T-shirt wearing crowd, like me. At the other are the Village People, all being butch and wearing construction helmets. Like your mate Steve."  
  
"Actually, Steve is bi," said Harry.  
  
"Proves my point then," said Draco. "In the middle you have the gay weirdoes. The respectable city gentlemen who have a wife and kids but still buy themselves a shag now and then. They're the ones to look out for. Weird bastards."  
  
"Okay, so I've convinced myself that sociologically, I'm not gay," said Harry. "But biologically, I am, possibly a little bit."  
  
"In a nutshell," said Draco. "Of course, there are people who disagree with me. There's a lot of debate in gay society over this. Loads of people get bloody angry with one another with alarming regularity, I'm ashamed to say. It doesn't say good things about us. There's a camp, (excuse the pun) that says it's completely biological, and a camp that says it's a personal choice, and there are millions of people who float somewhere in the middle, straddling the fence. My little theory isn't necessarily the right one, but it's nice and cosy and I'm rather attached to it. It has sentimental value to me. It's like a stuffed bunny rabbit."  
  
"I understand," said Harry. "What about religion?"  
  
"Don't get me started," said Draco. "The Book of Leviticus, I think, somewhere in the Old Testament. Well, the bit about homosexuality being an abomination is quite close to the bit that says you can be put to death for eating a pelican, or seeing your Uncle naked. "  
  
Harry shuddered at the thought of seeing Uncle Vernon naked.  
  
"Religion's nice and wonderful and all, and cosy too. And it'd be lovely if there was a divine plan and a Heaven and stuff, and to know that life has a purpose, and I really wish it does all exist, and I bet secretly most scientists do too, but nobody's proven it yet, and sometimes it doesn't half say some funny things to justify itself."  
  
"I suppose you're right."  
  
"The Bible itself seems to me to be an instrument of control," said Draco. "Of course, that's just me. Look at the Commandments. If you went straight to Hell for disobeying just one of them, everyone would end up in Hell, which by nature, and by the very fact that religion also stakes out a nice place called Heaven, explodes the notion of a Hell immediately."  
  
"You mean nobody can live by the Ten Commandments all their life?"  
  
"Exactly," said Draco. "Nine of them are pretty easy to live by, if you put your mind to it. Stealing, adultery, murder. But I bet you've coveted your neighbour's ass."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, maybe not his ass, maybe his new telly, or his sound system, or whatever, but everybody gets envious ... even die hard Bible thumpers. But back to the matter in hand."  
  
"Which was?" asked Harry. Their footsteps were leading them past the seafront clubs, closer to the gleaming white pier.  
  
"I think you're denying you had sex with me," said Draco.  
  
"Which time?"  
  
"Well, all of them," said Draco. "Remember when we first ... um?"  
  
"Did it? Yes," said Harry. "Halloween Ball, 1996, we sneaked away afterwards."  
  
"Where did we go?"  
  
"Astronomy Tower, I think," said Harry.  
  
"What did we do?"  
  
"What's the point of this?" asked Harry.  
  
"We did practically everything," said Draco. "Now, don't you think mere curiosity is a rather lame excuse to justify sex, especially with your worst enemy?"  
  
"You were hardly my worst enemy," said Harry.  
  
"Yes I was, don't lie, you hated my guts," said Draco. "Surely you'd rather have done it with Weasley, or at least someone you liked."  
  
"The thought never crossed my mind," said Harry, looking away hurriedly, as if ashamed of something.  
  
"You did come back for more," said Draco slyly. "Several times. You were getting quite good, by the end. Not that I was any better," he added, hastily.  
  
"Then what happened? Enter Lucius Malfoy, stage left," said Harry bitterly.  
  
"Yes, I'm sorry about that," said Draco sincerely. "I honestly didn't know he was visiting."  
  
"Draco, I don't know if you forgot, or something, but he walked in on us, and I had my ... I was ... I was, well ..."  
  
"Having sex with me," said Draco. "Exploring the forbidden delights of my deliciously sexy body. Yes, you were. And believe me, I'm sorry."  
  
"Not so loud," hissed Harry.  
  
"Who'll hear? Those Japanese tourists?" asked Draco. He turned towards them. They were standing at the water's edge, taking photos of the seafront. "Hey! We like to have sex with each other!" he yelled. The tourists looked up and gave them a bizarre, scandalised look.  
  
"Anyway, I was the one who got chucked out over it," said Harry.  
  
"I was the one who got beaten to within an inch of his life, then taken out of school," said Draco. "I was the son of a multi-Galleonnaire business magnate. I was the heir to a fortune the size of Greater Manchester. Believe me, you had it easy. How could his precious son turn out to be gay? He wouldn't accept it. He gave me six months of hell after he took me out of Hogwarts. He made me run round the estate every morning, and cold showers, and boiled cabbage. And then there were all the shrinks and the quick cures. So when I just couldn't take it any more, I ran away."  
  
"Is that how it happened?" asked Harry, looking at Draco with renewed interest. Draco nodded.  
  
"As I live and breathe," he said, quietly. "I had to get away from that place. I had two pounds in Muggle money, I even dyed my hair brown so I wouldn't be recognised, and then I went to London. I spent the next two years looking for you."  
  
"Well, you found me," said Harry. The roar of the surf crashing on the foreshore, and the cracking of the tiny, rounded pebbles against one another as the backwash rushed over them filled his ears.  
  
"I did," admitted Draco. "Took me five more years to get another shag out of you, but then there you go."  
  
Harry grinned. "Okay, I was confused as a kid, but what does it mean now?"  
  
"I don't know," said Draco. "The important thing is that you don't feel bad about it."  
  
Harry weighed it up in his mind. He had been completely pissed, out of his skull on drink, and bleary-eyed and hung over, and Draco had taken advantage of his confused state, but strangely, the anger he had been expecting completely failed to materialise.  
  
"I don't feel bad about it," said Harry. "I honestly don't. I don't know why, and I know I should be hopping mad at you, but I'm not."  
  
"That's good," said Draco, the wind was whipping at strands of his long, blond hair, which was tangled and uncombed.  
  
They walked on in silence, up the steps at the far end of the beach, and around onto the pier itself. It being a Friday, out of season, there was very little activity. The public address system was playing 'As Time Goes By,' and there were a few elderly ladies, sitting on deckchairs, watching the gulls scrabbling down on the shingle. Harry and Draco paid them scant regard, and carried on walking, their feet thudding on the boardwalk.  
  
There were about ten children, with the studious, badly dressed look of French exchange students, and loud backpacks to match, clustered round a coin operated machine, taking turns to pick up teddies with a little grabbing bucket. Their teacher was sitting on a bench nearby, eating chips noisily out of a paper cone and smacking his lips in between each mouthful. His harsh, pointy face reminded Harry especially of Snape, although the warm smile with which he greeted them as they walked past certainly did not.  
  
"I love tacky things," said Draco, pausing to peer through the window of one of the sideshows. "Rajah Singh, Indian Mystic ... divines your future. Doesn't seem to be in at the minute."  
  
"Divination is a horribly imprecise science, anyway," said Harry, smiling. Draco turned to look at him, surprised by this. Harry did not usually condescend to talk about Hogwarts, or any of the things he had done or the friends he used to have there.  
  
"Probably a fraud," said Draco. "Do you think we should get our signatures analysed?" he asked, pointing to the next booth along.  
  
Harry shook his head. "For two pounds a shot, you have to be kidding me."  
  
"They're closed too ... everything's bloody closed."  
  
"There's a fairground at the far end," said Harry. "We could see if any of the roller coasters are operating."  
  
"They have roller coasters on the pier?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Two of them. Didn't you see them from the beach?"  
  
"Wasn't looking," said Draco. "I hate roller coasters. Why don't we just take it in turns to gob over the side?"  
  
"How very straight of you," said Harry. He followed Draco over to the rail, and peered over to the churning white tipped waves below. There were gulls bobbing up and down on the oily surface, and bits of polystyrene, empty boxes from the takeaway fish stand floating in it.  
  
Draco hawked noisily, and then spat. A gobbet of saliva fell to the sea below.  
  
"See if you can hit one of the gulls," he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.  
  
"You're still basically ten, aren't you?" said Harry. "Malevolent little sod," he put his feet up on the rail, and then copied Draco by spitting over the side.  
  
As it turned out, the roller coasters weren't operating, although some of the little kiddie rides were, and they watched as a bawling toddler was reprimanded by a harassed-looking parent, before they wandered off to find some food.  
  
There were several restaurants on the pier itself, but Harry insisted they crossed over the road to the Lanes, a twisting maze of medieval and Tudor alleys, crammed with arty boutiques, where he knew a good tapas bar. It was getting on for five o'clock, and darkness was rapidly falling outside, but the restaurant was already quite crowded with the young and trendy. There was also a party of loud Americans sitting by one of the windows, and Draco took care to choose a table far away from them, where they sat down. There was a wooden dinghy, bleached to make it look old, hanging from the ceiling above them.  
  
"What'll you have?" asked Harry, picking up his menu.  
  
"Something with paella in it," said Draco. "I like paella. And those tiny little fish that they do, and potatoes with that nice garlic dip, and maybe some calamari too, and I would be abusing myself if I didn't order chorizo."   
  
"Hungry?"  
  
"You bet," he said. "Hey, look, they do cocktails."  
  
"Don't order anything extravagant."  
  
"But for you, oh beautiful one, I would order Budweiser," said Draco, grinning. "You know, you're a completely different person when you're not worrying about your sodding business."  
  
"Excuse me!" snorted Harry. "You work for me, thank you very much."  
  
"I didn't mean it disrespectfully," said Draco. "Up in London, it's all places to go, people to fuck. Down here, you're more chilled out, more relaxed."  
  
"Must be the sea air," said Harry, smiling. "And Brighton's a funny kind of place anyway. It has this weird effect on people."  
  
Draco nodded his agreement. "It's a place not entirely in tune with the rest of the country. It's a bit like, it doesn't exist. A place outside of the confines of time and space ..."  
  
Harry began to whistle the theme from the Twilight Zone.  
  
"I think I like you better in Brighton," Draco went on. "But then again I fancy you rotten wherever you go, of course."  
  
Harry became aware that Draco had slipped off one of his shoes, and was running his toes up and down his ankle.  
  
"Not here, people will see," he whispered, opening a new packet of cigarettes.  
  
Draco giggled. "And who's going to see?" he asked.  
  
"That load of Americans, for a start."  
  
"Let them ... get a load of the indigenous culture," said Draco., his toes running lightly over Harry's shin and higher still. "Can I ask you something?"  
  
"Fire away," said Harry. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and lit up, savouring the taste.  
  
"Did you think you loved me at the time?" asked Draco. "I mean the first times, back at Hogwarts ... before. Or were you just in it for the sexual gratification?"  
  
"Which answer would you prefer?" asked Harry.  
  
"Either's good," said Draco, though Harry sensed this was a lie, and he wondered why Draco would be lying about that. Didn't he have a personal preference? Hadn't he been in it for the sex too? "I was just wondering, that's all it is," he sounded like he was trying to be casual.  
  
"I think it was the sex," said Harry finally. " After they chucked me out, I wanted to bloody murder you for some time. I don't think I loved you ... I still not sure if I do."  
  
"What did you like about me?" asked Draco.  
  
"Getting personal, aren't we?" said Harry.  
  
"Yes, but, I'd tell you the same."  
  
"Well," he began. "I liked the way you looked at me, and the way you used to hold me afterwards. Does that count?"  
  
Draco nodded. "I guess," he said. "I'll tell you something ... I was madly jealous of you."  
  
"How come?"  
  
"Well, you were small and bony and naïve and silly," said Draco, reeling off the points by counting them on his fingers. "But you weren't half gentle with me. I used to love that. I don't think I was ever like that. You seemed to care about making sure I enjoyed it too. It wasn't just pleasure for you. I think I knew then you were fundamentally a good person."  
  
"But I'm blatantly not now," said Harry. "I run guns, I deal pornography and I blackmail people."  
  
Draco snorted. "Huh, where did it all go wrong, eh?"  
  
"I fell in with the wrong crowd," said Harry. "My family weren't going to take me back after that. Well ... and I hardly wanted to go back to Privet Drive. It was make or break time, and I broke it, big time."  
  
"What happened to you?" asked Draco. "You never usually talk about it."  
  
Harry sighed. "I got in with the wrong crowd. We were living rough, squatting where we could, doing all sorts of weird shit. Mushrooms, LSD. Then I got caught by the police, and banged up for six months," said Harry. "When I came out, I'd taken my GNVQ in Hospitality Management, so that seemed to be the way to go. Six months later, I'd set up my first club. The Pink Parrot. I was on my feet, independent, and truly free, for the first time in my life. It didn't half feel good. Now it's five years on ..."  
  
"How did you get into all the criminal part? I mean, you're rich as Croesus without the gangland connections," said Draco. "You could quite happily live off the clubs and the gyms."  
  
"Now you're getting into personal territory," said Harry. "You know, I have to admit I don't know. Perhaps legitimate business wasn't thrilling me like a normal person. Perhaps I need more kicks to be satisfied."  
  
"That makes sense, I suppose," said Draco.  
  
**************  
  
Hermione usually enjoyed the secrecy of the affair, the illicit trysts in his London flat, the sex, especially the sex. Her lover, tall and slender and undeniably beautiful, had a manner so tender and gentle that she did not think she had ever encountered in a man before. Right now he was in the kitchen, making the post-coital coffee, and having a sly cigarette, no doubt. Hermione had been pressuring him to give up, and to all intents and purposes he had done.  
  
Just not completely.  
  
He came back into the bedroom, set down her coffee on the bedside table, and climbed back into bed next to her. He removed the half spent cigarette from between his lips, and stubbed it out in an ashtray, before turning to face her.  
  
"You alright, love?" he asked.  
  
Hermione nodded. "Why do you ask?"  
  
"You look spent," he said.  
  
Hermione smiled and flicked back her hair. "I just spent the last two and a half hours making love to the man of my dreams ... "  
  
"Brad Pitt, where?" he asked.  
  
"The other man of my dreams," said Hermione. "You."  
  
The light from the streetlamp outside was illuminating him from behind, meaning she couldn't see or read the expression on his face. Outside, Hermione knew the world would be coming and going as normal ... just as it always did. She could hear the swishing of traffic passing, and the rumbling trains passing over the nearby railway bridge.  
  
"That's very gracious of you," he said. "I'm sure you can't possibly mean it though."  
  
"I think I do," said Hermione. "How's Ron?" she asked, changing the subject.  
  
Her lover looked away hurriedly. "I wouldn't know," he said. "I haven't seen him for a couple of weeks or so. He's going to be home Sunday. Ginny told me on the phone."  
  
"Ginny's too good to me," said Hermione. "She tolerates me. That's about the most I can hope for ... tolerance."  
  
"Not outright bloody adoration ... with icing on? And sprinkles?"  
  
"Maybe, just a little bit," Hermione conceded. "But I don't deserve it."  
  
"How very strict of you. You should join a nunnery. Ginny's the kind of person who will ... well, she'll just help anyone," he said, sounding pensive. "She'll never turn someone down, or turn them away."  
  
"Hmm," agreed Hermione.  
  
"And I bloody adore you," he went on, leaning in close to kiss her, full on the lips. For a moment there was silence as Hermione put her arms around his neck and drew him in closer to herself.  
  
"You know something? You are without a doubt the most beautiful woman I've ever seen who didn't have staples through her stomach. I mean, look at me, I'm constantly fighting the urge to fold you into thirds."  
  
Hermione giggled.  
  
"Do you fancy another go?"  
  
"I don't think I could stand it," said Hermione.  
  
"I'll take that as a yes," he planted another kiss on her shoulder, and slowly began to work his way down ...  
  
**************  
  
Jo turned to look at Ron. "I was thinking," she said, putting her head on her hand, and smiling. Her smile, her face, her whole being reminded him very much of someone. It was probably why he found her so attractive.  
  
"What about?" asked Ron lazily. He was still breathing hard, his heart thumping inside his ribcage, his entire body coated in a fine gloss of sweat. Downstairs, he could hear Cameron playing a Star Wars video at full volume.  
  
"You make love like a Japanese meal," said Jo.  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"Small portions ... but so many courses," she smiled. So did Ron; he couldn't help it.  
  
"It probably comes from having such a large family," conceded Ron. "At mealtimes we all have to eat double quick just to be sure of getting seconds."  
  
It was Jo's turn to giggle, she put her arms tighter around Ron's middle, and he shifted his weight. She ran her hand slowly down his chest to his navel.  
  
"Well, you do need feeding up a bit," she conceded.  
  
"It's all this rampant passion," said Ron, kissing her back. "It's very good for me; I'm burning calories like nobody else's business. Besides," he added. "If I really want a slap up feed, I can just pop home. Mum usually excels herself."  
  
"When do I get to meet your Mother?" asked Jo. "You keep putting me off. We've been sleeping together for two months now. I think it's about time."  
  
She took his head in her hand, and moved so that he was forced to look into her eyes.  
  
"There might be sushi in it for you," she said.  
  
"In that case," said Ron, feeling heat running through his body once more. "You shall come to dinner on Sunday."  
  
"Do I get to meet all your gorgeous brothers too?" she asked.  
  
"If you want," said Ron. "One Weasley ... ooh," he broke off suddenly as she snaked an arm across his waist and round the small of his back, "is pretty much the same as another ... or so I'm led to believe!" he ended on a squeak.  
  
"We shall have to see," said Jo.  
  
"We will," said Ron. "You'll get to meet Charlie's new shag as well. He's been going on about her for weeks now. It's getting boring."  
  
"She can't be as sexy as me," whispered Jo, huskily.  
  
"Indubitably!" squeaked Ron. "What do you think you're doing down there ... oh. Oh, I see. That's certainly unexpected."  
  
He was cut off by the loud trilling of his mobile, which he had placed on the bedside table. Sighing in a mixture of annoyance and undisguised lust, he picked it up, and took the call.  
  
"Weasley."  
  
The voice on the other end of the line sounded frantic. "Ron ... it's me, Cassie."  
  
"What the fuck do you want?"  
  
"Huh ... charming," came Cassie's voice.  
  
"Sorry ... I'm a little busy right NOW!" he squeaked.  
  
"Ron? Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah ... yeah ... got the plumbers in," said Ron, gasping slightly. "Pipes need lagging."  
  
"Oh ... okay. Look, Chevron just got in touch. We've found Harry and Draco."  
  
"Oh ... oh, yes. Um ... yes, that's very nice."  
  
"You sound distracted. What's that funny noise?" asked Cassie.  
  
"Plumbers," lied Ron hurriedly.  
  
"Whatever. Chevron has spotted them both. They're in Brighton," said Cassie. "I took the liberty of sending down some of our girls to see if they can take care of them."  
  
A/N  
  
In the next part of Snitch!, Draco enjoys his Saturday night, and wears leather ... a bit, Chevron closes the net on Harry, there's a double whammy of a surprise for dear old Ronniekins, and we find out just who Hermione is shagging. Coming soon ... to a theatre near you.  
  
Reviews ... ooh, plenty of those to keep me happy last time round. Thanks so much for the feedback. I appreciate it lots and lots! So waves and schnoogles go out, in order, to the following ...  
  
Parker, Saitaina, Cassandra Claire (I accept the plaque with pleasure ... and I just want to thank my manager ... my agent *g*), wingedkeys (catching all my pop culture references ... yes *Al looks relieved*), Crazy Slash Luv'N Chick, Karina, heidi tandy, Simon (skipped a bit), Zybenkizzashanta (cool name), Sara, wow, Amanita Lestrange, Destiny, Hillary (I know you *can* get those shirts, but I have no idea where ... sorry), Sanna, Lauren, AngieJ (I appreciate those comments so much, thanks a million Eb *g*), Viola (yay, thanks ever so for the beta, as ever), Dervish (you can get trousers with ... um buttons ... instead of zips ... ok?), Teek, Rhysenn (wonderful beta that she is ... *schnoogles Rhysenn*), Juniper, Wynster McG (as if I would have Draco behave in anything other than a responsible adult fashion, or maybe not ... besides, I think AIDS storylines might be pushing the boundaries a bit in this fandom), minx, Crazy Michael (it was a Python reference), Kei, Tanasia Maleficarum, Arabella, PJ Babington, lot, Hype, Keoko-sama, Cassie Lee, f, kath (Brighton's teenage hordes are indeed legendary, and the traffic ... don't get me started), Melpomene, Bec, Talia Fisher (another Brightonian ... yay), carissa, yael, elel88 (18), Chelsea, Dewi, elysian (to get author alerts, you need to actually create an account at FFN, otherwise there's no other way I'm afraid, sorry), ~Lily Black~, Flourish, virgo, Beth825 (he's in denial ... poor Harry), mima (insult Eastenders as much as you like in my review column ... I despise that show with a burning passion), Gwendolyn Grace, LongLongHair, dicy (a prequel may well be coming soon), Sekhmet (no Sirius for a reason which I hope is obvious, and more of the back story is to come, so don't despair), Penny & Carole (*Al does 'we are not worthy' actions a la 'Wayne's World'*), kine, Bookworms Anonymous, Felicitas, darkangel, Abby Stiles, Colin (ellipses ... addiction ... you're right, I can't live without them, they are my undoing), Inspiring Author, starling (who has pictures of Slut!Draco ... where where where??), Catriona Snape, Morsus Crustum (you mean to say they weren't playing Scrabble?? I thought that's what slash was), Lizzy/Tygrestick, rave (the Queen Mum's knickers are indeed legendary in the world of underwear), Keieru, *Ice Lily*, princess_katrina, Fringe Element, Second Catch Policy, Anrui Ukimi, Gemma Potter and Bracken ... and I'm spent. You are all wonderful human beings, and deserve virtual biscuits and hugs and stuff. Thanks!  
  
For every five reviews I get between now and midnight Sunday (GMT) I'll give 50 pence to Comic Relief ... how's that for an incentive?  



	5. Gangster's Paradise.

SNITCH!  
  
WARNING, WILL ROBINSON!  
  
This story contains sexually explicit language and sequences in both straight and same sex relationships, including slash. If you find this in any way offensive, please do not read this story. You have been warned. R rated for extreme adult themes, which will include any amount of sex, profanity and violence. Yummy.  
  
IT ISN'T ME  
  
Oh no ... indeed not. It belongs to J.K. Rowling and some other people now, as well. But then, you all already knew that, I guess.  
  
Dedicated to the betas ...   
  
PART FIVE. GANGSTER'S PARADISE.  
  
The magical community down in Brighton was about ten thousand strong; one of the largest in England, and certainly large enough to warrant a Diagon Alley style 'secret town' in the heart of the city. In this case, it was referred to as the 'Hotpot,' even though it was actually called Brighthelmstone; the nickname having arisen as an allusion to the hundreds of wizarding immigrants who had poured into the UK following the final defeat of Voldemort in 1998, creating a cosmopolitan and diverse mini-culture that was perpetually at odds with the more staid, formal style of wizarding London. Like Diagon Alley, the Hotpot was accessed through a small pub, deep within the Lanes, called the Bent Copper, and it was to the Bent Copper that Ron and his team, Remus, Cassie and Avon Apparated shortly after five p.m. on Saturday.  
  
Cassie wanted to stop for a drink, but Ron was most insistent that they press on to the local Chevron office, which shared premises with the local MLES centre, the floor above Flourish and Blott's Brighton franchise.  
  
Even though it was January, and dark, fairy lights had been strung across the alleyway, and there was a distinct carnival atmosphere. People were spilling onto the pavements from shops, pubs and cafes, and here and there vendors wandered through the thronging crowds, carrying trays of sweetmeats strung about their necks, Caribbean delicacies and the ubiquitous 'Sausage-inna-Bun.' Loud music -- a bizarre but not unpleasant fusion of British Celtic influences, Salsa and Jamaican steel drums -- was blaring out from a pub announcing itself to the world as 'The Man With A Load Of Mischief' - the sign playfully depicting a furtive looking man sneaking off with a young serving wench slung over his shoulder.  
  
They trooped upstairs to the Chevron office, which turned out to be a cubby-hole next to the water cooler. There was just enough space for two desks, only one of which was occupied, by a young, earnest looking wizard tapping zealously and with great care at the keys of an ancient Apple Mac. He looked up when Ron coughed.  
  
"Oh, hello," he said, not sounding at all overjoyed to see them. "You must be the London mob. I'd say take a seat, but we don't actually have any."  
  
"That's fine," said Ron. "You must be Edmund Rathbone."  
  
The wizard smiled, and proffered his hand to be shaken. His face was cast in shadows from the dim bulb in his anglepoise lamp. "That's me," he said. "My colleague was going to be here ... but she had to go out and set up the club, make sure the contacts are in order."  
  
"Ready for later?" asked Ron.  
  
Edmund nodded. "Certainly," he said. "I can't tell you what a day it's been ... and such short notice too."  
  
"Sorry about that," said Ron. "It is rather important though."  
  
Edmund nodded again. "Of course, of course. I quite understand," he said. "Who are we after?"  
  
"Very dangerous men," lied Ron. "One of them is called Draco Malfoy ... he's a wanted criminal. The other ... the other is a much nastier piece of work."  
  
"I see," said Edmund. "Well ... we've used the club trap before down here ... and it seems to work. Basically we take over a Muggle club for the night ... there's one we like to use called Snap, which is where we're confining our operations tonight. We get in a few witches and wizards for surveillance, and open the club up to the Muggles as usual. Wham bam thank you ma'am," he said this with the faintest hint of a chuckle creeping into his suddenly overexcited voice. Ron got the impression that he was a man who really, really enjoyed his job. Either that or he really needed to get out more.  
  
"Do we all get to go clubbing then?" asked Cassie, looking hopeful.  
  
"God, I hope not," said Remus. "You know there is nothing sadder than a forty-something trying to dance. I have not a hope of looking good. And I didn't bring my flares."  
  
"For surveillance purposes, you may have to," said Ron.  
  
"I need to head back to London early," said Cassie. "My new bloke is taking me to meet his folks tomorrow."  
  
"How is your new bloke, Cassie?" asked Ron, peering over Edmund's shoulders as he tapped away at his keyboard. "You're always on about him, yet you didn't bring him to the Christmas party. I want to meet him."  
  
"You'll get your chance."  
  
**************  
  
Draco stepped out of the shower, picked up one of the towels, and began to rub himself dry vigorously. This done, he slipped into clean underwear and pulled a T-shirt over his head. It was one of Steve's, and as such hung down to his knees. Then he went into the kitchenette, where Harry was sitting at the table, nursing a couple of shot glasses and a new bottle of vodka.  
  
"Are you drinking or smoking?" asked Draco.  
  
Harry shrugged. "Both," he said. He poured himself another shot of vodka. Draco took the bottle away from him, and set it down at the other end of the table.  
  
"You know what they say about men who've had too much to drink," he said, teasingly.  
  
"Not really," said Harry, lying.  
  
"They perform below par in the bedroom."  
  
"But you said I was very good when I was pissed," protested Harry.  
  
Draco pondered this question, and then decided to tell Harry the truth. "Yes, well, you didn't actually ... um, as it were."  
  
"Oh, right," said Harry. "He's quite happy to shag defenceless drunk boys like me, but try letting me shag him ..."  
  
"You just said you were never going near me again in your life," said Draco. This was true. Their lovemaking the previous night had been very boisterous, and come the morning, Harry had appeared to be even more confused than before, if such a thing were possible. He claimed afterwards not to want to do it again. Draco, of course, had other ideas.  
  
In the more private moments which Draco often shared with his subconscious; usually when he was stoned beyond belief, he had been increasingly thinking about Harry just lately. He had suspected that there had always been something there, something between them, the ability to touch, to communicate on levels which transcended the mundane world; or maybe that was the hash talking.  
  
The first time they had ever slept together ... now that was a story worth telling. It had been the Halloween Ball, or rather, a couple of hours after it. Harry had been dancing with, variously, Hermione Granger and numerous other Gryffindor girls, and Draco had been mainly sitting at one of the tables at the side of the Great Hall and trying to fend off the unwanted attentions of Pansy Parkinson.  
  
Draco watched them as they danced, and he knew he should be thinking about other things, girls and such, but what had struck him most had been the way Harry moved. Having outgrown his old bottle green dress robes by the start of the fifth year, he had traded up to a pair of very fine, velvet, burgundy robes with a high collar, the sort Draco himself favoured, complete with a solid gold clasp across the front in the shape of two dolphins. They had, Draco recalled, fitted Harry very well, and had given him an air of ... of ... well, they had made him look sexy beyond belief. Draco had always thought of himself as a bit of a gangly idiot, to tell the truth, though he was loathe to confess that to any of the guys he slept with these days.  
  
Harry had walked out of the Hall alone afterwards, and Draco had, unconsciously, unaware of what was happening, followed. He didn't fully appreciate why it was suddenly important to follow Harry ... at that time he had still been in a state of near desperate denial, and despite the fact that Pansy Parkinson had bad breath and looked like Shergar, would probably have consented to do it with her if she had bothered to ask him. Thank God, she had not, for he probably would have accepted.  
  
Draco found himself walking up to Harry, and though at first he had been met with a curt, "Fuck off, Malfoy," he had persisted, and as they had been walking along the second floor Charms corridor, everything that he had been feeling inside had burst to the surface in a wave of formerly repressed emotion. He had grabbed Harry by the shoulders, thrust him up against a wall, and kissed him. And to his surprise, nay, his delight even, Harry had responded in kind. He remembered vividly how Harry smelled of butterbeer and the pumpkin pie they had had for dessert, and the look of surprise in his eyes.  
  
Neither of them spoke a word to each other as they hurried up to the Astronomy Tower, it was past midnight, and the other students were long abed. Draco remembered how his hands had trembled, how he had felt sweat breaking out across his forehead, under his arms as he struggled with the clasp on Harry's robes ... how easily they had slid off his body under his touch, and the feel of the buttons on his shirt, and how he had known what lay beneath.  
  
"Draco," Harry had breathed. "Stop it."  
  
Harry had made no attempt to stop Draco himself. Draco had not known what to do. He felt as if he was being driven by a force that was occupying his body on its own remit, doing what it wanted to do. This was absurd ... he was getting off with Harry Potter! This oughtn't to be allowed, surely. What would the others think? What would he tell them? What would this do to him? Would he become queer and never carry on the family name? His Father! For fuck's sake!  
  
And then the realisation had hit him, as he slid Harry's shirt off, the other boy struggling, albeit half-heartedly as Draco pushed him again against the wall, so that his back was pressed against the cold stone. He didn't have to tell anybody! Nobody had to know! This had fuelled his passion further ...  
  
"Malfoy ... what are you ..."  
  
Draco seized Harry by his bare shoulders, and kissed him again, this time thrusting his tongue deep into Harry's mouth. Harry gagged and nearly coughed, but Draco steadied him.  
  
"Nobody has to know," he gasped, his breathing rate increasing. "Nobody has to fucking know."  
  
"Malfoy?"  
  
"Shut up and fucking kiss me."  
  
His hands were playing across Harry's chest, down to his waist and struggling with the buckle on his belt, then the buttons and zip. Draco's heart was thumping so loudly he was sure he would give them both away. Harry's hands seemed pinned to his side ... he seemed awkward, he didn't have a clue. Without a word, Draco pulled back ... seized Harry's hands and clasped them in his own.  
  
"Just relax," Draco breathed.  
  
Harry was shaking violently. Draco felt physically sick.  
  
"Have you done this before?" asked Harry. Draco dug his fingernails into Harry's wrists and held tight.  
  
"Never," he whispered.  
  
"Malfoy ... let go of me."  
  
"Well ... then ... uh ... perhaps ..." began Draco. He released Harry's hands, and took a step backwards. The snitches on Harry's boxer shorts were fluttering their wings angrily at him.  
  
"Oh fuck, no," said Harry. "Don't do this. Fuck."  
  
Draco undid the clasp on his dress robes, and let them fall to the floor. Then he stepped forward again, slipping off his patent leather shoes as he did so. Harry looked on.  
  
"Malfoy?"  
  
Draco closed his eyes. When push came to shove, was he really sure he could go through with this? Was it really the right thing to do? His brain was fighting a hasty rearguard action ... and other parts of him were screaming to proceed.  
  
He felt Harry's hands, warm against his sides, as they ran down his body, lifting the shirt, deft fingers going to work on the buttons. Draco sighed. "Just the once?" he asked.  
  
Draco did not try to resist as Harry eased his clothes off of him. But neither did he open his eyes, consumed as he was by a mixture of shame so violent and all-consuming that it brought him close to vomiting, and yet was it really shame? Perhaps it was lust too ... perhaps something else, perhaps something stronger. Harry's hands ran swiftly across his stomach, pausing at his navel.  
  
"Do you want me to?"  
  
"Fuck, I don't know," Draco moaned.  
  
"Yes, then," Harry's hands were wrapped around him, and he could feel the other's skin against his own, and he gasped as Harry kissed him again.  
  
"Draco?"  
  
Draco opened his eyes suddenly. He was sitting on the kitchen table, with Harry looking on, in a mixture of amusement and alarm.  
  
"Are you okay?" Harry asked. He poured himself yet another shot of vodka. "You looked like you were having some sort of seizure."  
  
"No, I'm fine," said Draco, hurriedly. The vexatious voice of his subconscious was screaming in his ear.  
  
Fuck! You love him ... and you fucking know you do. Now stop being such a fucking twat and ... fuck him.  
  
Draco put his hands over his ears. "No, no, no, no," he said. "I'm not listening to you," then he became aware that he was talking out loud.  
  
"Did I just say that?"  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"Kill me now, I don't want to live anymore."  
  
Harry turned away. "Tell me," he said, feeling his chin for any stray hairs he might have missed whilst shaving, "where we are going tonight? I thought you said you had some good ideas."  
  
Draco grinned and nodded. "Now, this depends," he said. "How drunk do you want to get?"  
  
"Drunk enough to be able to dance without being aware that I look like a complete prick," said Harry. "Not so drunk that I do dance looking like a complete prick."  
  
"Ah, well, it's a fine line," said Draco. He fell silent for a few seconds, and Harry looked at him oddly.  
  
"A fine line?" prompted Harry.  
  
"Between looking like a complete prick and actually being one," said Draco. "It's like being cool. Remember James Dean?"  
  
"Not especially," said Harry.  
  
"Fifties film star, American," said Draco. "Honestly, you're more fucking Muggle than I am ..." he stopped, instantly knowing he had gone too far. Harry did not like to be reminded of such things; it was one of the few provocations at which he would explode violently. But, to Draco's surprise, Harry continued checking his face in the mirror.  
  
"He had a trademark thing, where there was a matchstick poking out one side of his mouth," Draco went on. "Which made him look very cool. But, if he'd had a second matchstick poking out the other side of his mouth, he'd have looked like a complete twat."  
  
Harry did not reply.  
  
"You get the same with eye patches," said Draco. "Only the scenario is more extreme in its consequences."  
  
"Shall we get slaughtered then?"  
  
"I think we might just have to."  
  
**************  
  
Ginny paused with her key in the lock. She was standing on the landing outside the Knightsbridge flat she shared with Hermione Granger (ex-Weasley), and was instantly aware that something was awry.  
  
For a moment, she considered turning, and heading down to Nero's on the corner for a coffee whilst she waited for Hermione to finish shagging the living daylights out of whoever it was she was shagging the living daylights out of. But then she thought, sod it. It's raining, it's cold, and there are plentiful supplies of freshly ground Brazilian in the cupboards. Besides, Hermione's always going on about how bloody wonderful this bloke is. I want to meet him. Perhaps he's a fresh Brazilian.  
  
She nodded to herself, and opened the door. Instantly, the noises from within ceased, and she heard a voice, Hermione's, saying. "Quick, it's Ginny."  
  
She did not hear the man's reply. She walked past the bedroom door, and into the kitchen, where she set her handbag down on the table. Whoever was 'visiting' had bought them a very nice bunch of roses, which Hermione had put in water. There was also a bottle of tequila, unopened, and a half smoked Marlboro Light in the pig-shaped ashtray.  
  
That's Charlie's brand, she thought to herself.  
  
"Ginny, love. Put the kettle on!" came Hermione's voice.  
  
"Um ... okay," Ginny took the kettle, and filled it with water from their new filter jug. A copy of 'Magical Mess-Making & Cookery For Career Conjurors' by The Naked Wizard lay open on the worktop, and Hermione's wand was abandoned next to it.  
  
"Please don't say you've been bringing home Muggles and showing them you're a witch," called Ginny, as she switched the kettle on, and took three mugs down from the cupboard.  
  
"Actually, he's not a Muggle!" Hermione called back. "Are you making coffee?"  
  
Ginny nodded. "Yeah. Does your bloke want some?"  
  
There was a whispered consultation that she could not hear, and then Hermione spoke again. "Black, no sugars, no crappy instant, and definitely no decaff."  
  
Funny, she thought. That's just how Charlie takes his coffee. Then she wondered why on earth her thoughts were suddenly drawn to Charlie, and then she realised that his old, black, ex-USAF bomber jacket ... the one that had been torn in a bar room brawl at Ron's graduation party all those years before, was slung across one of the kitchen stools.  
  
"Oh fuck," she said to herself.  
  
The bedroom door opened, and Hermione came out. She was wearing a pair of blue pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt with the legend; 'St. Andrews Greek Week Monster Blow Out Bash & Pole-Sit-A-Thon 1999' emblazoned across the chest.  
  
"Hermione," ventured Ginny.  
  
"What?" Hermione looked up ... her hair, normally so well kept, was in a state of disarray, her face was flushed and there was passion in her eyes.  
  
"Who, exactly, have you just been shagging?" asked Ginny.  
  
Hermione stared down at her feet. Ginny observed she had painted her toenails in clashing shades of day-glow orange, green, yellow and pink.  
  
"I was meaning to tell you," she said.  
  
Ginny folded her arms. "When, exactly?" she asked. She could hear the sound of running water coming from within Hermione's en suite bathroom. The tap turned off, and then footsteps could be heard.  
  
Hermione wrung her hands in despair. "I'm sorry, Gin," she said, finally.  
  
"It *is* Charlie, isn't it?"  
  
Hermione looked up, and nodded briefly. "I'm sorry."  
  
"You bitch."  
  
"Ginny."  
  
"You complete fucking bitch."  
  
"Please ... look, it was a silly mistake," Hermione began. "I never meant to ... I mean, I wasn't planning ..."  
  
Charlie Weasley came out of Hermione's bedroom at that point, fiddling with the top button of a rather expensive looking Armani shirt. He looked all of his thirty-seven years ...   
  
"Um," he said, awkwardly.  
  
Ginny merely looked at him, her arms folded across her chest.  
  
"Ginny," he began. "Look ... I've ... we've. It's not what it looks like ..."  
  
Ginny's eyes widened by several degrees. "It looks very much like you've just been shagging my flatmate. Are you completely thick ... or just borderline?"  
  
"We didn't think you'd come home," said Hermione.  
  
"You didn't think I'd come home," said Ginny, repeating every single word agonisingly slowly. "To my flat? Where I live? You expected me to rent a cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge for the night, maybe? I know a couple of drunks down there who do very reasonable rates on Cape Apples. 50p per night ... out of the way of commuters."  
  
Charlie leapt to Hermione's defence. "No ... no ... nothing like that," he said. "Just ... not so soon."  
  
"Bully for you," said Ginny. She could barely bring herself to *think* about it. It was just ... yuck. Her ex-sister-in-law ... and her brother?  
  
"So ... why are you home?" asked Hermione.  
  
"Because I clocked off early," said Ginny. "Because I'd finished typing my copy for tomorrow's glossy supplement. Because there was sod all else to do and the only other person at the Prophet Office was Dai ... and you know how *he* gets ... sod it ... I don't even know why I'm explaining myself to you! I shouldn't have to explain this! You bloody should!"  
  
"We can't," said Hermione.  
  
"We love each other," said Charlie, playing the 'Sunset Beach' card.  
  
Ginny picked up her handbag. "I'm walking out of this flat now, Hermione. And in an hour, when I come back, you are going to be gone, your stuff is going to be gone. How many lives do you want to ruin? Wasn't it enough for you that I stood by you when you and Ron split? I mean ... it was Ron's fucking fault! Now you have to start ... I ... I just. Don't you even care what this looks like?"  
  
Hermione was looking at the carpet.  
  
"I'll go. You won't have to see me again if I can help it," she said quietly.  
  
**************  
  
It was twenty five past ten on Saturday night, and the queue outside Snap was snaking along the seafront almost as far back as the derelict West Pier. Draco almost gave up when he saw it, but reluctantly, mainly because Harry was prodding him in the back, joined the end of the queue. A bitterly cold wind was blowing off the sea, and the clubbers were not dressed for the occasion in their flimsy, summer clothes. Draco, who had spent nearly two hours getting ready, as opposed to Harry, who spent ten minutes, was wearing a pair of leather trousers, and a sleeveless black T-shirt so tight it was a miracle he had been able to get into it. He had had his hair done too, and looked the part. They had stepped out of the house twenty minutes earlier, and almost instantly Draco had been wolf whistled by a pack of teenage boys at a bus stop. At which he had actually crossed the road and kissed one of them, much to Harry's amusement and their evident disgust.  
  
Draco eyed the other patrons surreptitiously as they gradually drew nearer the head of the queue. There were two bouncers checking people's ID up at the front of the line.  
  
"No knives, drugs, anything you shouldn't have?" asked the shorter, female bouncer, letting Harry through with a smile but stopping Draco, who reluctantly spread his arms wide to be frisked.  
  
"I can barely get myself into this T-shirt," said Draco, by way of conversation, as the bouncer, whose nametag pinned to her bright red bomber jacket proclaimed her to be called 'Rave,' patted him up and down, spending an inordinate amount of time at his buttocks. "Let alone drugs or weapons. Is that your real name?"  
  
Rave shook her head. "It's a moniker," she said.  
  
"Your name's Monica?"  
  
"Don't be silly," said Rave, patting his trainers. "Hah ... you're clean. It's always the sexy ones who are up to something."  
  
Draco tapped the side of his nose. "Sadly, my bread is buttered on the other side," he said. "How much do I owe you?"  
  
"Five pounds, three with an NUS card," said Rave. Draco, who had never set foot on a university campus voluntarily, parted with a crisp five pound note, which Rave held up to the revolving ceiling lights to check it was in order.  
  
"Thank you," she said, stamping his hand with a fancy black design. "No re-entry after one a.m.," she added. "Have a good evening, mate."  
  
"Thanks," said Draco. Harry had already been cleared by the other bouncer (presumably on account of not being sexy enough), and was waiting for him by the queue for the cloakroom, which consisted mainly of students being pretentious and angst-ridden, and bitching about how much they'd had to drink.  
  
"Ready?" said Harry.  
  
Draco looked at the other clubbers cautiously. "You're sure this is a gay night?" he asked.  
  
"Quite sure," said Harry. "Trust me, there's a certain currency amongst straight people down here, gay nights are in."  
  
"That defeats the point of a gay night," said Draco, huffily. "Kiss me, I need fortification."  
  
"People can see," hissed Harry.  
  
"There will be more than kissing happening in this club before the night is out," said Draco firmly, and without waiting for Harry's reply, he pinned him to the wall, and kissed him deeply on the lips. Harry let out a muffled exclamation of surprise, and grabbed at the only things he could to keep himself from losing his balance. These happened to be Draco's buttocks.  
  
"Feisty," murmured Draco, breaking away from the kiss. Harry looked at him, his face a mixture of surprise, disgust, and something approaching lust. Draco grinned.  
  
"I know I shouldn't have enjoyed that," breathed Harry. "But ..."  
  
"Come on, my little friend," Draco cut him off. "Let us enter the melee."  
  
Harry pushed open the double doors leading into the club. Two straight people were snogging one another on the other side of it.  
  
"Yuck, get a room," whispered Draco.  
  
The music was not yet loud enough to make conversation impossible, and the dance floor was relatively empty save for three men about Draco and Harry's age who were wearing what looked like lederhosen, and a woman in a purple cat suit.  
  
They picked their way through the crowd that was already two deep around the circular bar, which occupied a position slap bang in the centre of the giant room. On one side of it was a quieter area for chilling out and relaxing, with comfy-looking sofas. Through the haze of dry ice drifting around the club, Draco could make out the lighted tips of cigarettes. Harry ordered them both Vodka Red Bulls, and they went to sit down on one of the giant sofas  
  
**************  
  
Ron, feeling very out of place indeed in the most clubby clothes that Ginny had been able to find for him; a pair of white Levi 501s and a plain black T-shirt, reluctantly submitted to be frisked by Rave, who was clearly enjoying herself greatly.  
  
"First night," she said, caressing his thighs.  
  
"Um, yes, actually," said Ron. "I'm not normally into this sort of thing."  
  
Rave gave him a surreptitious glance. "Yeah, that's what all the straight blokes say," she said. "And I meant it's *my* first night. I used to flip burgers up at McDonalds. Five pounds please."  
  
Ron leant in closer. "The cat is out of the bag," he said.  
  
"You nuts or something?"  
  
"No," said Ron. "The cat is out of the bag."  
  
"I'm sorry? Is this some sort of gay chat up line?" asked Rave.  
  
"Are you White Phantom?" asked Ron.  
  
"Oh no, that's Sher," said Rave. Her face lit up as she realised what he was on about. "Are you that guy she was talking about?"  
  
Ron nodded.  
  
"May I see your magic wand?"  
  
Ron hissed at her to be quiet. "Look, did you see a blond bloke and a dark haired bloke. The blond was ..." he broke off, unable to find the words. "Um."  
  
Rave nodded. "I frisked him," she grinned. "He's been working out."  
  
"That wasn't exactly what I was interested in," said Ron, as a crowd of students pushed past. They were wearing deely-boppers on their heads.  
  
"He's attached," said Rave. "to the dark haired kid ... the one who looks about eighteen. They were snogging like the nuclear siren had just gone off. Someone's going to be getting some ..."  
  
"Yeah, thanks," said Ron, his mind turning over as he tried desperately to think of a reason for Harry to be doing this to him. It was bad enough he had overturned the sting that they had spent weeks preparing, and left poor Alf the bouncer, Alf, with his hernia and flat feet, in a ditch somewhere near Hayward's Heath, without forcing him to follow up by trailing them to the campest club in Brighton.  
  
"Mr. Weasley?"  
  
Ron spun around. He was looking into the eyes of a woman slightly younger than himself, who was dressed, like Rave, in a red bomber jacket bearing the name of the club and black jeans over trainers so white they looked luminous in the half-light. She flashed her IBME warrant card at him.  
  
"I'm Sher, the Chevron liaison officer for this area."  
  
"Commodore Weasley," said Ron, slightly stunned. He had been told to expect a bloke. Was Chevron messing him about again?  
  
"The targets went into the club about ten minutes ago. Since then, we've had them on CCTV. There're cameras all over the club," she went on. "Of course, we leave some black spots. Nobody likes to be caught on candid camera when they go clubbing."  
  
"Forgive me for sounding naïve," said Ron. "But, black spots? And why would people mind being filmed? It's for safety, isn't it?"  
  
Sher gave him a funny look. "When did you graduate from Hogwarts?" she asked.  
  
"June 1998, why?" said Ron.  
  
"That makes you twenty-three," said Sher. "Have you ever actually set foot in a club before?"  
  
"There's a nice little jazz venue on Diagon Alley," said Ron, remembering it fondly. It had been there that he and Hermione had shared their first dance. "I went there quite often when I was training at IBME Headquarters."  
  
"I meant a club club," said Sher. "House? Garage?"  
  
Ron shook his head.  
  
"Then let me explain a little something to you," said Sher, taking him gently to one side. The hordes of clubbers swarming past them and through the double doors just assumed Ron was another poor sap who had tried to smuggle in ecstasy. "This club is predominantly for members of the homosexual fraternity, not that that matters one jot in this town. This means that we are surrounded by gay men, which means there are a lot of horny, like-minded people here tonight who are going to want as much guilt-free sex as possible. They're not here to just brush up on their tango."  
  
"But that's awful," said Ron. "Aren't you ... aren't they worried about that? What about diseases and stuff?"  
  
"It's so dark in there, nobody really notices," said Sher. "And besides ... most people who are into this sort of thing know the risks, and most of them play it safe. And if they don't ... well, I'm sorry, but it isn't the management's responsibility. We don't do blood tests at the door," she looked a bit annoyed. "Now ... are you ready to go in? What can I get you to drink?"  
  
"Bitter lemon would do nicely, thanks," said Ron.  
  
"Don't be a ninny ... you're having something strong with schnapps in it."  
  
They pushed through the crowd to the bar, and then had to wait ten minutes to attract someone's attention. The DJ stopped playing 'Disco Inferno' and started playing S Club 7 ... and when he was done with them followed up with Steps and the Bee Gees. Quite a few people were dancing by now. Mostly exuberant young men about Ron's age, quite a few of them shirtless. Ron found his gaze inexorably drawn ... quit that! You got over it!  
  
"I hate Muggle music," said Ron. Sher handed him his drink, which turned out to be Malibu and Coke.  
  
"There. Now you look the part," she said. "All you need is some glitter on your cheeks."  
  
"Don't push your luck," said Ron, downing his drink in one go. "Have you spotted the targets yet?"  
  
"Harry and Draco ... sure," said Sher, nudging him to look. "They're busy doing something over there."  
  
"Oh fuck no," hissed Ron. "Harry!"  
  
"Actually, it looks like Draco is doing most of the doing," said Sher. "They've got a couple of other guys with them and ... oh shit. Look away; pretend to be dancing," she finished hurriedly and wrapped her arms around Ron's waist.  
  
"How much do I owe you for the drink?" asked Ron.  
  
"Be quiet and watch the targets," snapped Sher. "Else I really will charge you for the drinks."  
  
They edged slowly away from the bar, Ron's feet moving awkwardly in tune to the infectious beat of 'Rhythm of the Night.' Sher spun him slowly around so that he could get a better view. Ron swore under his breath. The sensation of actually seeing them both, in the flesh, after all this time ... it felt weird. It felt unearthly. It felt as if it shouldn't be happening. And to think what could have happened. Harry could have played world class Quidditch.  
  
"You dance like a straight man," commented Sher.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"It wasn't a compliment," she hissed back.  
  
"This is weird," regarded Ron. Harry was perched on the arm of one of the leather sofas. Draco appeared to be holding court ... or holding something. It was impossible to see where his hands actually were through the floating haze of cigarette smoke. The other blokes, similarly attired, were standing in front of them.  
  
"Well, are you going to talk to them?" asked Sher.  
  
"What ... me?"  
  
"Well, I don't see any other operatives in here," she said, sounding exasperated; the rest of Ron's team were watching the proceedings on closed circuit TV cameras in the club owner's office.  
  
Ron broke away from her. "I may need backup," he said.  
  
"I have a wand right here," said Sher. "Go on."  
  
Ron looked awkward.  
  
"Oh don't be pathetic," Sher scolded. "You've got a drink, you don't look too bad. Go and talk to them."  
  
Ron glanced quickly over, only to find, to his dismay, that the sofa Draco and Harry had previously been occupying was deserted. He cast his eyes quickly around the club, which was really starting to fill up now, and eventually spotted them, dancing with those two other blokes they'd been talking to before.  
  
Sher gave him a gentle nudge. "Go on then. I'll be your backup in case anything nasty happens."  
  
Ron got the feeling Sher was probably taking the piss out of him in a pretty fundamental way, but he couldn't quite put his finger on whatever it was. Nevertheless, he ambled over to where Harry and Draco were dancing, Harry reluctantly so.  
  
He drained his glass, and set it down on the bar top. Draco flashed him a grin, and held out his hand. Ron winced.  
  
"Why don't you join us?" Draco yelled over the music. "This is Harry!"  
  
Harry smiled half-heartedly. Ron got the impression he was merely tolerating Draco's excesses.  
  
"Want a drink?"  
  
"I'll get them in," Harry yelled. "What's yours, Carrots?"  
  
Carrots? Ron would normally have floored anybody who dared call him that.  
  
"Mine's a pint of ..." Ron began, then thought better of it, "mine's a Bacardi Breezer."  
  
Draco grinned.  
  
"I like your style," he bellowed. "Harry, get a Bacardi Breezer for my sexy young chum here, and follow that up with two pear flavoured schnapps. And get a pint of something for yourself," he handed Harry a crisp twenty pound note, before turning back to Ron. "You'll excuse my friend, he seems to be labouring under the delusion that he's straight. Tell me, do you know the funky gibbon?"  
  
"I'm not into that sort of thing," said Ron hurriedly, keeping one eye constantly on Harry, who appeared to be fighting tooth and nail to get through the crowd to the bar.  
  
The music changed again ...  
  
"Pity," said Draco, humming along to 'Stick It Out,' by Right Said Fred. From somewhere else in the club came a loud whooping sound, and the dance floor was suddenly flooded with students. The podium dancers were struggling to stay upright.  
  
Two bouncers, Rave and another one Ron didn't recognise, moved swiftly past them, heading in the direction of a ruckus that seemed to have developed over by the cigarette machines.  
  
A group of three students elbowed through the middle of their abortive conversation, carousing loudly in Spanish and clutching bottles of Heineken. Harry returned with their drinks.  
  
"Where's my change?" Draco hollered over the opening bars of 'The Thong Song.'  
  
"I'm keeping it," Harry shouted back. "I've hidden it somewhere about my person," he handed Draco the drinks. He had bought himself a pint of yellow liquid with bubbles in. It might have been lager, but more likely was overspill from the slop tray.  
  
"You're dancing all wrong!" Draco yelled, placing one hand on Ron's hip to steady him. "Move more gently," Ron tried to ignore it. Harry, he noticed, appeared to be eyeing him suspiciously. Did he suspect? He glanced over his shoulder, but Sher had been surrounded by an excitable group, waving bottled vodka around in the air and singing along to the music. She appeared to be enjoying herself.  
  
"What do you do?" asked Draco. His breath smelled of hash - nutty and not altogether offensive.  
  
Ron began, "I'm a tr ..." but got no further, for someone knocked into him from behind, causing him to spill half his drink on Draco's new suede shoes. "Sorry!"  
  
"No worries!" shouted Draco. "Only cost eighty quid. You're a transvestite then?"  
  
Ron shook his head. "No, a ..."  
  
"Train driver? Travelling sex aid salesman?"  
  
"I track people down!" Ron shouted.  
  
Harry's ears pricked up immediately.  
  
"How do you mean?" asked Draco, who was too pissed to notice what Ron was getting at.  
  
"People pay me money, and I go and find people for them," said Ron, judging this was probably the most explicit job description he would be able to give if he didn't want Harry to kill him, or something like that.  
  
However, he observed at that point that Harry was giving him a very guarded look indeed.  
  
"You looking for someone now?" asked Draco. "Oh, I know. You're getting 'paid' to track down the sexiest man alive ..."  
  
Ron could feel himself blushing very deeply. "Not exactly," he began to say. However, before he could get any further, Draco had seized him round the waist, pulled him right up close, and was kissing him. Ron could do nothing to stop it. Draco *was* very forceful, after all.  
  
"Mmph," he went, forcing himself not to respond in kind.  
  
Draco broke away suddenly, and cupped Ron's chin in his hand, smiling into his eyes. "I can tell you're going to be a lot of fun," he said.  
  
The rest of the evening seemed, to Ron anyway, to degenerate into an increasingly drunken and random series of regrettable events. He vaguely remembered being helped onto one of the club's chunky sofas, of Draco doing something to him in full view of everyone else that he was sure Draco shouldn't be doing to him. He remembered being plied with drinks, he remembered staggering outside at half past two in the morning, and the cold air coming off the sea nearly killed him on the spot. He remembered, very vaguely, throwing up in something that could easily have been a litter bin, then a very rapid cab ride, and an even more rapid kebab. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out completely was being put to bed.  
  
**************  
  
"Fact remains, who is he?" the voice was asking.  
  
"I have a talent for picking up random blokes in clubs," said another voice. "Trouble is, even I don't remember picking this one up."  
  
"Did you have sex with him?" the first voice again.  
  
"I'm ... not sure, Harry," the second voice. "I could very well have done."  
  
"Have you checked his wallet?"  
  
"Nothing, just twenty quid and a photo of a kid," said the second voice. "He doesn't have any credit cards. Nothing." Ron opened one eye sleepily. Where were the others?  
  
Something that looked a bit like a grownup version of Harry was peering at him. As his eyes became used to the light that was pouring into the bedroom, the blob materialised into a grownup version of Harry, peering at him with something approaching concern.  
  
"I think he's awake," he said. "Morning, Carrots."  
  
It was like looking at a phantom. Green eyes - the same as usual, glasses slightly slimmer, fit his face infinitely better than his chunky, round, NHS schoolboy lenses had done. Shit, what a headache. His hair was different.  
  
"Morning," said Ron, sleepily. It felt like someone in a JCB was driving repeatedly back and forth across his head. "Whassatime?"  
  
"About twenty past one," said Harry. "You were out like a light."  
  
Ron sat up suddenly. "S'Sunday ... right?"  
  
Harry and Draco both glanced at each other, and nodded. It barely registered with Ron that Draco was wearing only a pair of satin boxer shorts, and Harry, a fluffy white dressing gown.  
  
"Shit!" exclaimed Ron. "I was meant to be taking my girlfriend to meet my parents today. Shit, shit!" He clapped his hand to his forehead, but this only prompted a fresh explosion of pain.  
  
Draco's face fell visibly.  
  
"Do you want to phone them?" asked Harry kindly.  
  
Ron shook his head. "Wouldn't do no good," he said. "They don't have a phone."  
  
Harry and Draco exchanged puzzled looks.  
  
"They're very set in their ways," Ron said hurriedly to cover up. "Don't like mixing with the Twenty-First Century if they can help it."  
  
Harry nodded. "I knew some people like that once," he said. "Fucking weirdoes."  
  
Ron had an idea what he knew Harry was alluding to, and it was a great effort for him to pretend not to be gravely offended. "Any chance of some coffee?" he asked.  
  
"I'll get some," said Draco, slipping out of the room. Both men heard his muffled shout of, "Bollocks!" from outside.  
  
An idea struck Ron. He looked up at Harry, and said. "D'you think you could find my mobile for me?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Trouser pockets?"  
  
"Probably," said Ron.  
  
Harry picked up Ron's jeans from the floor, and fished about in their pockets, withdrawing, finally, a tiny, slim-line mobile. It was an 'M-Net Aurora' ... not commercially available to Muggles, it only connected wizarding communications and blanked all others. Harry, thankfully, didn't notice the wand and owl logo, and merely said, "Nice phone. Never seen one like that before," as he handed it over.  
  
"You wouldn't have done," Ron said, flipping open the cover. "They've only just come on the market. They're Finnish ... the very latest thing."  
  
"Nokia?"  
  
Ron had never heard of Nokia. "Probably not," he said. He switched it on.  
  
"You have two new messages," the phone said. "Press 'hash' to retrieve your messages from the M-Net Call centre on," Ron muffled the speaker whilst the phone said, "Diagon Alley."  
  
Then he pressed the button.  
  
"Could you step outside for a minute?" Ron asked.  
  
Harry nodded, "Sure. Voicemail?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
Harry tactfully withdrew from the room.  
  
"Message number one, delivered at ... 0 ... 2 ... 3 ... 5 ... a.m. on ... Sunday ... the ... 12th ... of ... January ... 2003. Caller was ... Hermione ... Granger."  
  
Beep.  
  
"Fuck. Ron. I'm at your house now and you're not fucking there! Please let me in. We need to talk now," she sounded distressed. "It's Ginny. Well, actually, it's not ... it's me. But it's my fucking fault and I need to talk to you now. Phone me back soon please."  
  
"Message number two, delivered at ... 0 ... 1 ... 0 ... 2 ... p.m. on ... Sunday ... the ... 12th ... of ... January ... 2003. Caller was ... George ... Weasley."  
  
"Ron. What the fucking hell is going on here? It is one o'clock and we are just about to sit down for lunch. You are not here. Your date is not here. Ginny is not here. Charlie is not here. What the hell is up? Call me back, and be eternally thankful that Mum doesn't know how to use a phone. She's calling you an ungrateful little sod as we speak."  
  
Ron set the phone down. "Shit," he said, as Draco came back into the room with coffee. He set the mug down on the bedside table, and then sat down in the chair.  
  
"Aren't you cold?" asked Ron.  
  
"Draco Malfoy does not get cold," said Draco. "I am Draco Malfoy. Therefore, I am hot."  
  
Ron decided to take a chance. "Funny sort of name, Draco Malfoy," he said. "Isn't that Latin for something."  
  
Draco sighed, then nodded. "If you pronounce it that way," he said. "It means dragon."  
  
"How'd you get lumbered with that?" asked Ron, sipping his coffee. It didn't taste like his usual brand - but then the coffee revolution had passed him completely by some years previously; Ron's usual brand was Sainsbury's Economy.  
  
"My parents were a bit weird," said Draco. "I like to think that's reflected in my zany, easy-going personality."  
  
Ron was about to say something to the contrary.  
  
"So," Draco was saying. "You're attached?"  
  
"For a few weeks now," said Ron, who, despite being trained in sixty intermediate to advanced to bloody terrifying interrogation techniques, found himself admiring Draco's ability to flip the conversation on his head.  
  
"Special girl?"  
  
Ron nodded. "Yeah, well," he said. "She's ... um, my secretary."  
  
"Ron Weasley ... private eye," said Draco. Ron froze.  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
"You just remind me of someone I once knew," said Draco. Ron's heart started beating again. "Actually, he was more of a friend of Harry's. I thought he was a right little wanker. He gave me a black eye once ..."  
  
Ron could barely suppress a smile. "You guys were at school together?" he said.  
  
Draco nodded. "Uhuh ... private, pretty expensive. Up north somewhere. It's just occurred to me that I don't know your name, kid."  
  
"Ron," said Ron quickly. In circumstances such as this, IBME operatives were usually told to stick as close to the truth as possible. "Ron Jackson."  
  
Draco gave him a funny look. "How bizarre. And you're sleeping with your secretary?"  
  
Ron nodded.  
  
"That is *so* 1950s. Lemme guess? There's a wife and a young kid on the side?"  
  
"There was," said Ron. "We're divorced. It got messy. I'd rather not ..."  
  
"And so young, too," said Draco, crossing his legs and trying to make it look like he was just ... crossing his legs. No way was Ron falling for that one. "I don't assume you ... dabble at all?"  
  
Ron, knowing that the 'dabbler' was, by the sounds of things, having a shower in the bathroom next door, kept quiet.  
  
Draco, clearly assuming Ron's silence as an admission of, at least, partial guilt, grinned. "Go on. You weren't out in a gay club last night just for your health now, were you?"  
  
"I certainly wasn't there for my health," said Ron. "I hate clubs."  
  
"Non-scene? Pity," said Draco. He leaned forwards. "So if you hate clubs, why were you there?"  
  
"I told you," said Ron. "I track people down. It just went a little haywire ... that's all it is."  
  
"Good job you don't have a boss to reprimand you," said Draco. "I do."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Harry. Now, tell me about your dabble in the dark arts."  
  
Ron, who was almost on the verge of finding the both of them dropping subtle hints about the same thing amusing, grinned.  
  
"It was a couple of times," he said. "A boy at school."  
  
"Ah, the blessed naivety of the teenage years," smiled Draco. "What was his name?"  
  
"Harry," said Ron.  
  
Harry, who had walked back into the room at that moment, froze.  
  
"Harry, get this. This guy's name is Ron, and he once shagged someone called Harry ... at school!" said Draco gleefully. "Isn't that ... " his face fell as he *finally* made the mental connection. Ron's heart sank. "Oh."  
  
"Harry?"  
  
Ron looked up, to find Harry pointing a gun directly at his head.  
  
"Okay, Carrots," Harry said, moving slowly around the side of the bed, and pocketing Ron's mobile as he did so, presumably so as he wouldn't be able to call anybody.  
  
"What?" asked Ron, innocently, or so he hoped.  
  
"Pop quiz," said Harry. "Answer convincingly, and I might let you walk out of here with your brains intact. What year were you born in?"  
  
"1980," said Ron hurriedly.  
  
Harry removed the safety catch from the handgun. "Okay. In which case ... you'll be familiar with Rainbow."  
  
Ron shook his head.  
  
"Playschool? Fraggle Rock? He-Man? No ... this is a house, this is a door, windows, one two, three, four? Ring any bells, Carrots? Eric is a perfectly normal boy, but when he eats a banana ... an amazing transformation occurs. Yes, Eric is Bananaman," he paused. "I'm not getting through to you, am I, Carrots?"  
  
Ron shook his head to all three. "These are TV shows, right?"  
  
"Good guess, Carrots," said Harry. "And with no real cultural heritage of our own, they are all our generation has to feel nostalgic about. So, strange that you don't appear to have heard of any of them ..."  
  
"I didn't watch a lot of TV," said Ron.  
  
Harry sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping a tight grip on the trigger. "Who saved TVAM?"  
  
"Luke Skywalker?" hazarded Ron.  
  
"Roland Rat," said Harry, voice dripping with sarcasm. "What was the name of the amusing rodent who partnered Andy Crane in the Broom Cupboard?"  
  
"Bob the amusing rodent?"  
  
"Gordon the Gopher, Carrots. Okay, so maybe you didn't watch TV. Let's try you on movies," said Harry. "But not Star Wars," Ron's heart sank yet again. Cameron Weasley's obsession with the series meant these were the only movies he watched with anything approaching regularity.  
  
"Name two people who were in Quadrophenia."  
  
Ron remained silent.  
  
"I'd have accepted Toyah Wilcox ... Leslie Ash," Harry said. "Name two of the kids out of ET."  
  
"Jack and Jill?"  
  
Harry shook his head. "Deeply sad," he said. "What do you think, Draco?"  
  
"I'll go with whatever you say, Harry," said Draco calmly.  
  
Harry appeared to be pondering his options. "Then get some clothes on you. We're going to take Carrots here for a little drive."  
  
A/N  
  
In the next part of Snitch! Ron is put to test, we learn more about Hermione's secret affair, and whatever became of Cassie and Remus? Find out! Coming soon, to theatres everywhere!  
  
And I was going to do a massive long thank you section here ...  
  
... but ...  
  
What the hell? I'll do one anyway! Special thanks go out to everyone who reviewed before the charity deadline. You successfully cleaned me out to the tune of £25.00 exactly, which will really, really be appreciated wherever it is used. Thank you so much. You were ...  
  
Cassandra Claire, Dr Branford, Saitaina, Morsus (yay ... mad schnoogles), Lizzy, Parker, heidi (Ron is not about to be hit by a truck), Carole, Hillary (sorry for the wait), Nora, Karina, FringeElement, Me!!!, Jocetta, Keoko-sama, princess_katrina, Katia, sherlock03, Molly, Catriona Snape, Silverfox, Inspiring Author, Moriel, Sara, HannahB, Tanasia, starling (if you haven't yet seen *that* picture, then head out to cassie_and_rhysenn, and shortly, the HP_Paradise Yahoo Groups), Virgo, Lady Malfoy (I'm sorry for disrupting your muse ... you can have her back now), Helmione Nightingranger, morgead, Amanita, isis, darkangel, Crazy Slash Luv'n Chick, Heather, anon56, Tom Riddilpley, Destiny, Cassie Lee, minx, Felicitas, cassie, Cali, Black Goddess, Hype, I am not a gay man (thanks for telling me that ... you don't have to be ... glad you seemed to like the story), Wynster McG, delentye, wingedkeys, LongLongHair, perenelle, Gwendolyn Grace, CrookshankS, nortylaK, Gryffindor, yael, Anita Skeeter, Keieru, HedwigAngel, Dewi, Nyias, Bec, Mima_W, *Ice Lily*, *strange charm*, Neo, Tessie, Benjamin, Celeste Chang, Parvati&padma, ME, Moondragon, AVK, water_nymph, pantalaimon, Krissy, elel88, Tinuviel182, saarah, dagan, Kris, Paperdoll, Wyvern, Sylph, Emerald Rose, lisa, Treehavn, Becks, and kine.  
  
You are all very worthwhile people. Thank you.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Terms Of Endearment

SNITCH!  
  
A/N  
  
*Al pops head round door*  
  
Hi there!!  
  
And welcome. If you're new, then be aware ... be very aware that this story is R rated for a good reason. It is slash. It does and will contain further slightly explicit sequences in same sex (that means gay, for the slower ones) relationships. There is also swearing and violence ... oh yes. So if you have any reason to be offended by any of this, then hit your back button *now* I totally understand why you might not want to read ... please have the decency to understand those who do *not* share your viewpoint.  
  
And the characters are ... J.K. Rowling's. Most of them. Except the cameos. The plot is mine ... I'm working on the characters, but Warner Brothers don't seem to want to sell me the rights. Tch, what is a guy to do?  
  
Read on ... fearless bunnies!  
  
PART SIX. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.  
  
The taxi pulled up outside Steve's Brighton flat just minutes after Harry's Mercedes saloon pulled away.  
  
They left it to Remus to pay off the driver, and Cassie, Avon and Sher mounted the steps to the front door.  
  
"Fucking hell," said Remus, joining them and stomping his feet. There had been a frost last night, and it was still perishing cold. "That man wanted a tip."  
  
Avon looked puzzled.  
  
"I recommended him a nice little bistro on the Tottenham Court Road," said Remus. "Does the most sublime fettucine al pesto. But I don't think that's quite what he meant."  
  
Sher sighed. "Did he by any chance call you something rude?"  
  
"Fucking Cockney wanker, if I recall," said Remus. "Sad really."  
  
Cassie pressed the doorbell again. This time, someone answered.  
  
"Yeah, what?"  
  
"Um ... may we speak with a Mr Harry Potter please?" Cassie shouted into the intercom.  
  
"No need to chew my ear off," came the angry reply. "I *am* still hung over, y'know. Anyway. No chance. Harry left about ten minutes ago."  
  
"Shit," said Cassie.  
  
"Ask him if there's any chance of a cup of tea?" asked Remus.  
  
Cassie pressed the 'talk' button again. "Any chance of a cup of tea?"  
  
"Fuck off!"  
  
"I'll interpret that as a no, then," said Remus grumpily.  
  
**************  
Ron sat quietly on the back seat of Harry's car as they sped north towards London. Harry drove, being sure to carefully exceed the speed limit slightly all the way. Draco sat with Ron, all the while keeping him covered with the handgun. The three drove in martyred silence - not a word was said until Ron's phone suddenly decided to go off as they were driving through Tooting, stuck in heavy traffic.  
  
"May I answer that call please?" said Ron.  
  
"Not a fucking chance," was Harry's reply. He answered it himself.  
  
"Ron, this is Hermione. Look ... I'm really sorry for calling you late last night, but I was in a right state, and I've calmed down now. I'm staying with Angie until this blows over, she's been great ... I've tried calling Ginny but she's taken the phone off the hook, and all I've been eating Dairy Milk and listening to Celine Dion records ... and drinking too much cheap French plonk ..." Harry listened with an amused expression on his face, "... what kind of plonk was it, Angelina?"  
  
A woman's voice from another room. "Hock. And it isn't French, it's German!"  
  
"Thanks, so you see, I'm desperate. Ron ... we need to meet up ... I'm going all to pieces here, I mean, I'll end up putting on weight if I'm not careful and look ... are you in town today? Because I think we should meet up. If you're going into town tonight, I know it's a trek from Teddington, but would you like to go to Quaglio's on Old Compton Street ... or there's an All Bar One in Richmond now, isn't there ... or ... any good pubs in Kingston? Probably not. Look ... what do you think ..."  
  
Harry said. "Hermione ... that you?"  
  
"Ron ... well, who else would it be? Is Cameron with you? Can I speak to Cameron, or have you stuck him in front of Return of the Jedi again? Typical lax bloody parenting. Justin and Seamus took Tamsin and Amber to Legoland Windsor the other weekend. We should have done stuff like that ... we could have gone down to Chessington, or Longleat, or Hever Castle, or up on the London Eye, or something ..."  
  
"Hermione," said Harry, pulling the car over to the side of the road and drawing to a halt, outside a twenty four hour supermarket.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"Ron! That's not very nice ..."  
  
"Hermione."  
  
"What? I should have known it was a bad idea to call you. I should have wallowed in my grief. Angelina has Bridget Jones on MDVD, so we're going to watch it and have a good weep ..."  
  
"Ron cannot come to the phone right now," said Harry, very calmly. "He's busy," Harry tipped Draco a nod, and Draco pressed the gun deeper into Ron's side.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"An old friend," said Harry. "Look, Hermione. We'll be in touch. Go away now."  
  
He put the phone down. Then turned round to look at Ron and Draco, who were sitting on the back seat.  
  
"I think that proves it beyond all reasonable doubt," said Harry.  
  
Ron nodded. "I rather think it does," he said.  
  
"Have you anything to say for yourself?"  
  
Ron frowned at Harry.  
  
"Bones and Cardwell ... they were yours?"  
  
Ron nodded.  
  
"I thought I gave them a fairly clear signal," said Harry, clearly, in Draco's eyes, fighting to restrain himself from throttling Ron. "I don't want to be contacted. I'm happy where I am, thank you."  
  
"I just wanted to see you again," said Ron.  
  
"How sweet," mocked Harry. "Draco ... put the gun away."  
  
Draco, however, did not move a muscle.  
  
"Did you hear me, Draco?"  
  
"I thought we *had* something," said Draco in a low voice. It grated like chalk on a blackboard. Harry shook his head.  
  
"Draco," said Harry. "I thought you knew. I thought you ... I thought you were in love with me?"  
  
"Not any more," said Draco.  
  
"I got that impression," said Harry.  
  
"I thought I was your first," said Draco, digging the gun even deeper into Ron's sides. "You were *my* first, Harry. I wanted you that night. What was it for you? I thought it was the same thing. But you'd been shagging this ginger pillock on the side, hadn't you? And you have the fucking nerve to tell me you aren't gay! Do you know how that makes me feel? Everything I believed about you! You ... you're a complete slut!"  
  
"Draco ... quiet," barked Harry.  
  
But Draco wasn't listening. "How many times did you fuck him? Eh? Were you fucking him while you were seeing me? It's the fact that you lied to me, Harry. That makes me mad. I may sleep around, but I don't lie ... I don't whine about not being gay ... how can ... how can you even claim that? Experimenting is one thing ... but I wasn't even your first! And I always thought ..."  
  
"We did it once or twice," said Ron quietly. "*That* was experimenting."  
  
"You don't deny it then!"  
  
"Of course not," said Ron. "I know I'm not gay. But ... at the time."  
  
"Fuck you," snapped Draco. "Fuck you both!"  
  
"Out of my car," said Harry quietly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Out of my fucking car. Now."  
  
"Fuck off!"  
  
"Get out, Draco."  
  
"No!"  
  
"Draco. You are fired. Your contract is terminated," said Harry. "As of now, I have no contact with you. Zip ... zilch ... nada. I do not know you. I have never known you. I am not involved with you in any way. From this moment you have ceased to be. You are an ex-employee. Do I make myself quite clear?"  
  
"You can't do that! I have rights!" Draco blurted out.  
  
"Not in this game," said Harry, cold as ice. "Never mind ... perhaps you'll find a nice club to work in," he spoke that last sentence with venom in his tone, almost spitting out the words.  
  
"Harry ... please!" Draco began, knowing as he said it that Harry was right. Nobody ever left Harry's 'service.' It had never come up before ... and Harry was powerful. He was in with the best ... or the worst of them. He could call up enough firepower to take out a small, majority world country with two phone calls. He could make your life a living hell. Draco knew all this. And he knew that if he told anybody ... Harry could, and would, have him killed. He was looking here at a man with morals twisted and warped beyond recognition. How on God's earth had it come about?  
  
"Out of the car," Harry repeated, a little more forcefully this time.  
  
Draco removed the gun from Ron's ribcage, and levelled it at Harry.  
  
"It isn't loaded," said Harry, quite calmly  
  
"You're bluffing."  
  
"I don't bluff. Get out of my car and I may not send a hit man after you, Draco."  
  
Draco pulled the trigger.  
  
Harry ducked instinctively. There was an ear-splitting bang, and the sound of smashing glass as the bullet pierced the windscreen. Several passers by on the pavement stopped. People were starting to point. People were screaming. You don't often get gunfights in Tooting ...   
  
"Naughty boy," said Harry, pulling his gun out of his pocket. "You obviously worked out where I keep the bullets."  
  
Draco's hands were shaking.  
  
"I hate you! I absolutely fucking hate you!"  
  
"You'd have died without me!" said Harry. "You know it. You know you need me. You know you love me because of what I can do to you. I can make you scream like none of the others. You love what I can do to you. And I know these things because I've seen you ... I've seen you begging me to fuck you again. I've seen these things. You need me, boy!"  
  
"Fuck off!" yelled Draco. "I can get it from anyone I want! Not dirty little whores like you!"  
  
"I'm the whore now, am I?" asked Harry. "This from the slut who conducted a long and sordid affair with one of my gym instructors in front of closed circuit cameras?"  
  
Draco reddened.  
  
"The videos were very entertaining, Draco," sneered Harry. "I bet you'd like to know what I was doing whilst I was watching them ..."  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"I was sprawled, naked on my couch, watching them, Draco. Watching you ..."  
  
"Fuck off!" Draco screamed, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped the gun on the floor. "You're lying! You're lying!"  
  
Harry regarded Draco with a mixture of pity, and something else on his face.  
  
"I'm sorry about this, Draco," he said. "Your lifestyle just ... isn't for me, I guess. It was nice whilst it lasted ..."  
  
"You're as gay as I am ... and you fucking know it!" snarled Draco.  
  
"That's not what you were saying the other day," said Harry. "You do realise, Draco, that I can have you arrested for rape. It only takes a phone call ..."  
  
"You wouldn't dare ..."  
  
"I would now," said Harry. He produced the other gun from the glove-box, and pointed it at Draco. "Now ... hop out ... there's a good little homosexual."  
  
Draco just sat there, a look of defiance stretched across his face. Harry knew he should be feeling something ... but he felt nothing. Why? They'd had sex. Several times. It had been good ... hadn't it?  
  
No! Fuck it! I'm not like that, Harry told himself. I have a life ... I'm normal. I got over it. This is his fucking fault ...  
  
"Out of my car. I don't want to see, or hear you again."  
  
Draco still sat there.  
  
Harry pointed the gun at Ron. "Draco," he said, flipping the safety catch off. "Either get out of my car now, or I'm going to plaster Ron's brains all over you."  
  
Draco took one look at Ron.  
  
"You're bluffing."  
  
"We've been through this," said Harry, quite calmly, as though he was merely socialising at some elite cocktail party. "I do not bluff."  
  
He pulled the trigger ... though as he did it, he jerked the gun upwards. The bullet flew harmlessly over Ron's head, shattering the rear windshield.  
  
Harry levelled the gun at Draco. "You did this to me," he said. "You. Only you. Thanks for the good times."  
  
Draco ducked sideways, his outstretched fingers contacting the coldness of the door handle. He heard the roar of the gun going off again, a yell from Ron ... felt the swish of air over his head, and heard the sound of the bullet impacting the metal of the supporting pillar behind his head. The door clicked open ... the gun went off again, and Draco damn nearly wet himself ... he pushed desperately at the door, and next thing he knew he was sprawled at the kerbside as the Merc pulled off into the Sunday afternoon traffic, tyres squealing, rear door hanging open as it disappeared round the corner.  
  
"Oh fuck."  
  
**************  
  
Harry parked the car in a secluded corner of the car park at his warehouse. The warehouse, an ugly, grey box, stood at the back of a large industrial park in a deserted area of wasteland, strewn with broken blocks and concrete. Once the site, in Bow, not far from the gleaming, new glass towers of the Docklands, had been a cloth dying factory. Now the site was overgrown and wild, littered with burnt out cars and dead shopping trolleys. Urban regeneration had not got *this* far.  
  
"You'd better get out," said Harry. He tucked the gun back into the pockets of his jeans, and got out of the car. It was bitterly cold, and drizzling.  
  
There were four other cars parked there. An elderly Ford Escort estate; one window taped over with a piece of cardboard ... a Vauxhall Cavalier, minus its wheels, held up on cinderblocks, an enormous yellow Renault Traffic van and, looking very out of place, a rather swish new Aston Martin.  
  
Two men strode across the concrete towards them, both thickset and balding. One wore blue, grease stained overalls, the other a cheap, mass-produced suit and round, NHS glasses. To Ron, they looked like trouble. He tried to keep calm. He tried to remember his training.  
  
"All right, Harry?" asked one of them, in a Cockney accent so thick it was almost impenetrable.  
  
Harry nodded curtly. "Snake, Herschel. This is Ron ... an old ... friend of mine. I'm just going to show him round the warehouse."  
  
Snake spat on his hand, and held it out for Ron, who took it gingerly and shook it.  
  
"Any friend of Harry's is a friend of mine," he said. "I'm Snake. I do cars."  
  
Herschel nodded. "I run this side of Harry's London operation," he said. "Although the operation isn't confined to the capital. We have jobs on in Spain, Morocco and Columbia, as well as the Middle East."  
  
"That'll do, Herschel," said Harry. "Look, Snake. We've had some trouble with the Merc."  
  
"I can see that," observed Snake, looking at the damaged car.  
  
"The windscreens, front and rear, are going to want replacing. I'll need new number plates, so you'll have to hack the DVLA database, Herschel, can you do that?"  
  
Herschel nodded.  
  
"And lastly, a complete re-spray. I rather fancy teal," said Harry. "Ron and I are going to use the office. Hold all calls. If Draco rings, tell him to get fucked."  
  
Herschel nodded. "We're onto it," he said.  
  
"Very good," said Harry.  
  
Ron was led into the warehouse. It appeared to be deserted. It was lit by neon strip lighting, dotted randomly amongst the rafters. There were hundreds of cardboard boxes, stacked three or four high, and several other cars, most of them in varying states of disrepair. There was also a single, rusting fork lift truck.  
  
"What's in the boxes?" he asked.  
  
"Too many questions," said Harry. He stopped, and took a small penknife out of his pocket. Ron stepped backwards, alarmed, but Harry merely slit the sellotape on top of one of the boxes, and lifted the lid.  
  
"Take a look," he said.  
  
Ron looked inside. The box appeared to be full of videos. He took one of them out.  
  
"Euro Sauna Boys?" he read. "Jurgen, Clint and Eric star in 90 minutes of hot Dutch action. Bondage ... hot ... Harry ... this is disgusting."  
  
Harry smiled. "I know," he said. "Nevertheless, there is a market for that sort of thing, believe it or not. Some people are willing to pay good money for it. That's all I'm concerned with."  
  
Ron slipped the offending object back into the box, and took out another one. The cover showed a woman providing a certain oral service to a horse that a horse wouldn't normally expect to get.  
  
"People buy this?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Sad horny twats. Come upstairs."  
  
Harry led Ron up a flight of metal stairs, and into a small office. There was a desk, several filing cabinets, a computer and several telephones. From up here you could see every inch of floor space. Ron sat down in the proffered chair. Out the window he could see Snake and Herschel pushing the Mercedes into the warehouse.  
  
The phone rang. Harry picked it up.  
  
"Hello."  
  
Ron didn't even attempt to listen in.  
  
"Good ... okay. I'll do it," he said. "Victor, I want you to go down there and make sure he's okay. Take him home. I'll call him later. I have business now ... excuse me."  
  
He set the phone down on its cradle, and then sat down on the other chair.  
  
"I think I've established who you are," he said.  
  
Ron nodded.  
  
Harry looked up, removed his glasses, and polished them on his jacket.  
  
"I'd give you a hug, or something ... but ... you know."  
  
"You aren't going to kill me?" said Ron.  
  
Harry shook his head. "No. I might kill Draco at some point. But not you."  
  
"I was thinking about you," said Ron.  
  
"Thought you might have been," said Harry, awkwardly.  
  
"We ... have that trunk of yours," said Ron.  
  
"Yes ... I'd ... um ..."  
  
"Like it back?" asked Ron.  
  
"Please?" said Harry.  
  
"Um ... okay," replied Ron. "I guess ... I guess it was true then?" he said.  
  
"What was?" asked Harry.  
  
"You and Draco?"  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"I saw the picture you drew of him."  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows.  
  
"It was good ... nice use of light ... and pencils."  
  
"You're not just here to give my artwork constructive criticism, are you?" asked Harry.  
  
"Er, no," said Ron.  
  
"That's good."  
  
"Can I ask you something?" asked Ron.  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"How long were you and Draco ... erm?"  
  
"Lovers?" asked Harry.  
  
Ron nodded.  
  
"A couple of weeks," said Harry. "If that."  
  
"But you ..."  
  
"After Hogwarts?" said Harry. "No ... nothing happened after Hogwarts ... until a couple of nights ago ..."  
  
"But if you're gay ..."  
  
"But I'm not," said Harry. "Leastways ... I don't think I am. Shit, Ron. I don't know what to think about myself anymore. It's just weird ... it's all so weird."  
  
"You had sex with Draco Malfoy ... I mean ... were you completely mad?"  
  
Harry shook his head, and leaned across the desk. "I wasn't mad," he said. "Draco may have been. He seduced me ... we made love a few times. I was scared of what you might say ..."  
  
"But we did just the same," said Ron.  
  
Harry looked up. "I ... that was experimenting, wasn't it?" he asked. "I mean ... it was once ... it was over quickly. It was messy and awkward and we didn't know what we were doing. I didn't think you enjoyed it."  
  
Ron shrugged. "I didn't quite mean it like that," he said.  
  
"Ron ... I was fucking my worst enemy ... and he was ... God, sometimes I think he still is, he was wonderful. Nobody ever held me like that before in my life. That was what I craved about it ... it was intimate ... nice ... calm. I think he loved me. I don't know if I loved him ... or if I was using him as some kind of a substitute for my parents."  
  
Ron snorted. "The difference being your parents didn't try and shag you."  
  
"That was uncalled for," said Harry. "Would you like some coffee?"  
  
"No, thanks," said Ron.  
  
"That's good ... I don't have any," said Harry. "I should've taken you to my other office in town. This is hardly the place for an emotional reunion."  
  
He got to his feet and walked slowly over to the window ... there he stood for a good twenty seconds before he spoke again, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels, his hands clasped tightly together behind his back, like a Lord surveying his estate ... except the estate in this case was a warehouse full of pornography and a car ringing racket.  
  
"Can I tell you something, Ron?" he asked.  
  
"Go ahead," said Ron.  
  
"I didn't think I'd ever talk to any of you guys again," he said. "You'd cut me out ... without a by your leave ..."  
  
"We can be ... quite ... um ... bigoted," said Ron, remembering with a sudden rush of awkwardness what he had said to Jo that night she'd driven him home.  
  
Harry shrugged. "I suspect that was more to do with Lucius Malfoy persuading the school governors that I had raped and corrupted his precious little slut of a son."  
  
"Anyway," said Ron.  
  
"Anyway," said Harry. "Professor McGonagall sent a letter to the Dursleys. Can you imagine how I felt on the train?"  
  
Ron shook his head. "I can't begin to," he said.  
  
"They're bigots, Ron," he said. "They live in Surrey ... they read the Daily Mail ... the two often go hand in hand. The Dursleys are the kind of people who think gay men should be castrated ... they think asylum seekers should be packed off back to whatever war zone they've just fled ... they think William Hague had some nice ideas ... they think Hitler was a good egg. And they believe whole-heartedly in corporal punishment."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"I knew what was going to happen to me," said Harry. "I didn't take that chance. I was meant to travel to the terminus ... King's Cross ... I got off at Finsbury Park. I ran away."  
  
"I'm sorry," said Ron.  
  
"I faked my death ... I suppose," said Harry. "Grew my hair out ... lived rough. Disappeared into London ... actually, it isn't that hard to do. London's a big enough place. If you know your way around it, there's plenty of places to hide. There was a gang of squatters I was with, we lived rough in Hackney for a while. Doing all sorts of stuff ..."  
  
"Drugs?"  
  
Harry nodded. "Don't get mixed up with that crowd," he said darkly. "It isn't good at all. I still trip from the LSD sometimes," he added. "Mushrooms ... coke. Not crack ... thank God, we didn't have money for crack."  
  
"How did you get money?" asked Ron.  
  
Harry looked down at the floor. "Stole, begged," he said. "Hackney is a rough area. Some of us ... well ... we sold ourselves."  
  
"Sex?"  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"Plenty of custom," he said. "You can make a couple of hundred quid on a good night," he caught Ron's expression. "I know ... I know what you're thinking," he said. "But you get desensitised to it eventually. The violence doesn't matter. You learn to cover it up. You take a beating from a punter if you don't want to let him fuck you ... sometimes you're so desperate you let him fuck you even though you still hurt from the last time. You bear with it. You ignore it. The drugs helped ... of course, it didn't last ..."  
  
"No?"  
  
Harry shook his head. "A punter accused me of robbing him," he said.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well," admitted Harry. "He was right. I nicked four hundred quid out of his wallet, I took his credit cards. I was a criminal ... a wanton little crook, a vandal, and a diseased rent boy ... fucking miracle I didn't catch AIDS."  
  
"I take it he did something to annoy you ..." said Ron.  
  
Harry nodded. "He was a wanker," he said. "He bought me in a doorway near Leicester Square ... that's where we worked ... more trade, if more risky trade. He took me to his flat ... and it was a nice flat. By the Thames, out in Chiswick. He said a hundred quid for the night, and he asked my name ... so I told him, Harry. He said something along the lines of, 'well, Harry dear boy. I have some things to show you.'"  
  
"What kind of things?"  
  
"He was a pervert," said Harry. "He had videos. Children. He only bought me because I didn't exactly look sixteen at the time. I told him he could fuck off ... tried to get out ... and then he just ignored me. He tried to lock me in the flat. I think he was ..." Harry tailed off, and looked at the floor.  
  
Ron bit his lip. "Harry," he began.  
  
"I ran ... I nicked his wallet and I ran. Well ... he called the police ... I got caught. Nobody listens to a little homeless whore, do they? Well, that's one thing I'll say for British justice, you always get a fair trial. I got banged up."  
  
"Harry ... you can stop if you'd like."  
  
"No ... I'd like you to know what your people reduced me to," said Harry bitterly. "Prison was cold turkey for me. It took a good month ... but it worked. I was off the drugs. I ... I enrolled on an intensive study course. Got me a GNVQ. When I got out. I borrowed capital to start up my first club. And," Harry looked down, and appeared to be conducting an intensive study of his hands. "I financed it on the side with a bit of ... well ..."  
  
"Crime?"  
  
Harry nodded, and gestured to the warehouse, spread out below them. "It's five years later," he said. "I've made it. Nobody can touch me. I have made myself beyond the law. It's quite amazing, when you think about it ..."  
  
"Don't you sometimes wish ..."  
  
"At first, yes," admitted Harry sullenly. "I did want to be with my friends. But then Draco turned up ... begged me for a job, so I took him on as a runner. I thought that was enough ..."  
  
"It isn't though, is it?" asked Ron.  
  
"No," said Harry. "Draco was a very good partner for me ... business, obviously. He ran some of the dodgier stuff ... kept my nose clean ... got me out of some nasty scrapes ... he's a good lad."  
  
"Want to make a phone call?" asked Ron.  
  
Harry turned back from the window. "Yeah," he said. "Perhaps I should. I'd appreciate it if you ... didn't tell Draco about that ... thing. He doesn't know about it."  
  
"Um," said Ron.  
  
**************  
  
"You have been listening to fuck all, haven't you!" yelled Remus into the phone.  
  
The reply was inaudible to the rest of the team.  
  
"The whole fucking point," said Remus, "was that Harry *knew*. The *whole fucking point* was that it was quite fucking obviously a real fucking sting, any fucker with half a fucking brain can see that. Can't you understand that, you monu-fucking-mentally fuck-faced fucking fuckwit?"  
  
The reply was still inaudible.  
  
"I was not meant to be watching the fucking house. That was *your* job ... but instead you delegate fucking unnecessary operatives to that club! I mean, what the fuck is with you guys?"  
  
Cassie and Avon shifted their feet uncomfortably.  
  
"The fact remains that our team leader is fuck knows where with two armed and dangerous fuckers who will probably kill him if they fucking find out who he is!"  
  
This time, the reply was plainly audible.  
  
"I thought you *wanted* them to realise who he was?"  
  
"One step at a time! One step at a fucking time!" yelled Remus. "Now I have to get onto Chevron again. We have to go back to London. Do you have any idea how fucking cold it is in fucking Brighton?"  
  
"I *am* in Brighton, Mr Lupin."  
  
"Well, that's not the fucking point!" Remus went on.  
  
"Tell me where you are ... I'll send someone to pick you up ..."  
  
"We have a hire car," said Remus. "And we know exactly where we are!"  
  
"Where?" the voice had a hint of challenging menace to it.  
  
"Somewhere in Brighton?"  
  
The voice on the other end of the phoned sighed. "I've got Chevron's latest fix on you. You're in a pub..."  
  
"I needed to fucking know *that*!" snapped Remus. "Look. Get onto London, get Chevron ... find Ron Weasley!"  
  
He hung up the phone, and turned to the others.  
  
"Anybody fancy another drink?"  
  
**************  
  
Draco was just about to relax on the sofa with a glass of wine and a plate of pasta to watch Crossroads, when the phone went off. Sighing, for he had just spent two hours wallowing in a very pleasant bubble bath, and was in no mood for people to ring him, he got up, and answered it.  
  
I hope to God it's just the magazine, calling about one of my articles, he thought to himself, as he picked up the receiver.  
  
"Draco?" Harry's voice. Draco's heart sank.  
  
"What do you want?" he asked, bitterly.  
  
Harry sighed, greatly. The disappointment in his voice was evident, and briefly, Draco felt a pang of sympathy for his erstwhile friend and casual fuck.  
  
"Look," said Harry. "I'm sorry. I said some things. I said some things I didn't mean ... I think ... you should maybe come here."  
  
"You at the office?" asked Draco.  
  
"I'm sending a car round to your flat," said Harry, not bothering to answer the question. "If you don't want to come ... I'll understand."  
  
And fifteen minutes later, Draco found himself being ushered into a waiting car ... one of Harry's anonymous, black, German saloons with the tinted windows. It was parked on a double yellow line outside ... but the look the unibrowed driver was shooting a traffic warden, loitering uncertainly nearby, precluded any possibility of a parking ticket being attached to the windscreen.  
  
"He wants to see you," said the driver. Draco realised with a sinking feeling that the driver was Horace; another one of Harry's homophobic minions. "Don't touch nothing. Don't say nothing. Don't do nothing."  
  
"Breathing okay?" asked Draco.  
  
"Be quiet, pouf," said Horace, pulling away from the kerb.  
  
"Righty-ho," said Draco. He pulled out one of the leaflets from the seat pocket. There was a picture of a burning cross on the front of it.  
  
"I said, don't touch nothing," said Horace.  
  
"Well, can we have some music on?" asked Draco. "Anything except Kiss 100 ... and Radio 2."  
  
"I *like* Radio 2," said Horace.  
  
"Yes ... I rather thought you might," said Draco. He was alarmed to see that they weren't headed towards Harry's office in Knightsbridge, when Horace failed to turn right at Waterloo, and instead carried on heading down the A3 towards Battersea.  
  
Horace stuck the radio on. It was Radio 2. 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree' ... to be exact.  
  
"Why are we going west?" asked Draco.  
  
"Harry wants you to meet him at a friend's house," said Horace. "Speak again, and I'll give your address to Combat 18."  
  
Draco didn't speak again until they pulled onto the gravel driveway of a perfectly normal suburban semi in Teddington. The house was half timbered in a crude attempt to make passers by think King Henry VIII had built it. In fact ... it had been built in the 1920s ... and those leaded light windows were actually made of UPVC. A huge Moss Security alarm disfigured the front of the house. There were three cars parked outside. One of them a Saab, one of them Harry's Aston Martin, and one of them a Volkswagen Beetle.  
  
"Who lives here?" asked Draco.  
  
"Fucked if I know," said Horace. "I was told to bring you here. Nothing more. Now I've got to fuck off again. Don't want to hang around here ... too many rich bastards ... sapping this country's strength ... bastard Commies giving all the best jobs to the Zionist horde ..."  
  
"Horace ..."  
  
"Yeah, what?"  
  
"Shut the fuck up."  
  
Pitying Horace for making such unstylish lifestyle choices ... and thinking that he probably needed a good shag to get him right again, Draco hopped out of the car, and watched sadly as it reversed quickly down the driveway.  
  
He was a little alarmed to find that the doorbell played the Hogwarts School song when he rang it.  
  
It was opened a moment or so later by a four year old boy, who, much to Draco's surprise, appeared to be floating a foot or so above the floor.  
  
"Are you Draco?" the boy asked.  
  
"Yes," said Draco.  
  
The boy descended to the floor ... flickered, and then vanished. Draco, alarmed ... stepped backwards, and almost fell off the step.  
  
"Mind out!" said the boot-scraper.  
  
Seconds later, Draco heard the sound of running footsteps, and the boy appeared out of a side room. This time, he was holding a small broomstick. Draco observed that he appeared to be wearing a Chudley Cannons' hat.  
  
"Hello," said the boy.  
  
"Ungh," said Draco.  
  
Someone else emerged from another room. This person was a tall, lean man with a curly thatch of brown hair. He was clad in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, over which he wore an apron with the legend 'My Gay Lover went to San Francisco and all I got was this progressive apron.'  
  
"Hi," he said, in a well educated voice. "You'll excuse me if I don't shake hands. Covered in chilli."  
  
"Fine," said Draco.  
  
Someone else, a shorter guy wearing a grey turtleneck sweater and beige trousers, came into the hallway.  
  
"I was just telling Draco," said the first man, turning to the second and slipping an arm gently around his waist, "that I'm covered in chilli ..."  
  
The other man nodded. "I once chopped some chillies and then touched myself in an unfortunate place. Absolute bloody *agony* ... ruined our Saturday night, right?" he said in an Irish accent.  
  
The first man smiled. "No sex please, we're making a curry!"  
  
Both men laughed. Draco was just beginning to wonder if he'd got the wrong house, when the second, shorter man clapped his hand round Draco's shoulders, and pulled him into the house.  
  
"You been clubbing, Draco?"  
  
"Well ... last night ... yeah," said Draco, bewildered.  
  
"You look very s-e-x-y," said the first man.  
  
"Um ... thanks?"  
  
Draco found himself being led into a large, well appointed kitchen, done up in that fake country cottage style that British suburbanites find so appealing. The worktops were solid looking pine ... there was an old fashioned porcelain sink and the glass-fronted cupboards were full of bright, primary coloured Ikea crockery. A small TV burbled happily to itself on the table, and in the oven, something was roasting.  
  
"Have a seat!"  
  
"Have a drink!"  
  
"Have some nibbles!"  
  
Draco found a glass of Sainsbury's lager being pushed into one hand, and a bowl of twiglets was slid across the table towards him.  
  
Gingerly, he took one. It *tasted* like a twiglet.  
  
"... are today's strongest link. You take away prize money of 500 Galleons. Severus Snape ... you leave, with nothing. Join us again, for the Weakest Link. Goodbye..."  
  
The two men sat down opposite Draco, and regarded him intently. Draco pretended to ignore the TV.  
  
"Um," said Draco.  
  
He took another twiglet.  
  
"How are you?"  
  
"... think I should have won the Weakest Link. Everyone at work will be unbearable!"  
  
Crunch, crunch, swallow.  
  
"Fine, actually," said Draco. "Just a bit confused."  
  
"... watching MBTV ... Britain's premiere wizarding band TV network. Later this evening, be sure to tune in for 'Who Wants To Be A Galleonaire?' and in the last in the current series of 'Pals,' we'll find out if Ross and Rachel finally manage to transfigure the annoying blonde one into a small slug, and at 10.30, it's Match of the Day, bringing you highlights of Portree versus Ballycastle ..."  
  
"Oh ... I'm Seamus and this is Justin," said the Irish one. "You might remember us?"  
  
Draco could barely speak. "Um ... I mean ... I thought, Ron and Harry?"  
  
"They're in the sitting room," said Justin. "They asked not to be disturbed. I think it might be quite an emotional time for them ..."  
  
"This your house?" was Draco's next question ... and he had no idea what made him ask it.  
  
"Ours!" spluttered Seamus. "No way! We share a flat up in town ..."  
  
"The life of a suburbanite is not for us, Draco," said Justin. "No ... this is Ron's pad.  
  
"Then what are you guys doing here?" asked Draco, whose head was still reeling from what it was being forced to take in.  
  
"We're on a play date," said Justin. "Our little ones ... Tamsin and Amber. They're upstairs with Cameron, Ron's sprog ..."  
  
"But if ..."  
  
"We used a surrogate mother," said Justin, grinning. "Totally ethically unsound, of course ... but the kids are beautiful."  
  
A second door into the kitchen opened, and Ron and Harry stepped in through it. Ron had changed out of the ill-fitting jeans he'd been wearing earlier, and now looked much more like the Ron Draco remembered, dressed in emerald green robes. Harry looked just the same, of course ... except his hair was all dishevelled ... his face betraying intense emotion through glazed eyes.  
  
"Harry?" asked Draco, looking up.  
  
"M'sorry," was all Harry seemed able to say.  
  
Draco set down his glass on the tabletop, pushed his chair back and stood up.  
  
"You mind?"  
  
Harry shook his head tentatively. Next thing Draco knew, he had enveloped his friend in a hug.  
  
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Harry repeated. He squirmed free of Draco's hands, and took a step backwards. Draco looked from Ron to Harry, and then back to Ron again.  
  
Ron shuffled his feet nervously and looked at the kitchen floor.  
  
"I think there's something you two need to say to each other," Seamus prompted.  
  
Ron scowled at Seamus. Reluctantly, Draco stuck out his hand.  
  
"Shake then," he said.  
  
Ron looked up ... that scowl was still fixed on his face. Slowly, he reached out, and clasped Draco's hand.  
  
Draco smirked. "Considering I gave you a blowjob last night ... you'd think we'd be talking quite amicably, really ..."  
  
Seamus and Justin both looked at Ron with new awe. "Ronnie? Is there something you're not telling us?"  
  
"I fancied Draco something rotten at Hogwarts!" fumed Justin. "You lucky bastard!"  
  
Ron, to his credit, smiled back. "Just don't expect to collect from me," he said.  
  
"I'll settle for that," said Draco. "Besides ... that isn't how these things work at all. And by the way, Weasley ... if I had known it was you ... I probably wouldn't have swallowed quite so readily."  
  
Harry and Ron blushed to the roots of their hair.  
  
What was on the verge of becoming quite a spiritual moment was interrupted ... suddenly and quite harshly, by the ringing of the doorbell.  
  
Ron raised his eyebrows ... clearly he had not been expecting any visitors. He raised his wand in the air, and intoned some spell that neither Harry nor Draco were familiar with. Instantly, a swirling mist formed in front of him ... arranging itself into a representation of a young woman, standing on the doorstep and hugging herself in the cold evening air.  
  
"Crap ... it's Hermione," said Ron. He turned to Draco and Harry. "I think you'd better hide," he said. "This could get heated."  
  
Draco snorted. "Where?" he asked.  
  
"Hall cupboard," said Ron.  
  
Draco found himself and Harry being ushered through into Ron's spacious hall. The doorbell rang again. Hermione was getting impatient.  
  
"In here ... quick!"  
  
The cupboard had a sliding door, and although it appeared small, was actually very large inside, if you tried to ignore all the shoes and slippers you were treading on. Ron made sure they were both safely in ... and then slid the door shut.  
  
A second later, the tiny space was filled with light, as Harry flicked on a cigarette lighter. Hanging from rails were a vast assortment of robes, some of them expensive, dress robes, some of them plain black ... and one set which looked like some kind of military uniform.  
  
"Do you think he has some kind of fetish?" asked Draco.  
  
"Shh," said Harry. He could hear Ron talking to Hermione on the doorstep. The exchange didn't sound too heated.  
  
"We could get off whilst we're in here," said Draco, hopefully.  
  
The door closed.  
  
"Let me take your coat," Ron was saying. "Come through into the kitchen."  
  
Harry heard footsteps outside, and a moment later, the door was edged open, and a coat thrown at them.  
  
"Hang that up!" hissed Ron.  
  
"That was quick," Harry heard Hermione say from the kitchen.  
  
"I have a new house elf," said Ron, covering up ... lying again. Harry, who had of course been filled in on all the details of Ron's life up to that point, wondered vaguely if that was why they had gotten a divorce.  
  
"Justin, Seamus," Hermione was saying. "How's the love life?"  
  
"Constant," replied Seamus.  
  
"He goes all night like a pile driver," said Justin. "I call him Seamus the Tank Engine."  
  
"Can I get drinks?" asked Ron. "Shall we go through into the front room. Hermi ... you want to tell me what's been happening ..."  
  
Hermione launched into her story, " ... when I phoned earlier and it wasn't you who answered. That made me so mad. But Ron, I'm scared of what your family might think ..."  
  
There was a brief popping sound as Ron uncorked a bottle of wine.  
  
"... must admit it was stupid," said Ron. "Shagging my brother in my sister's flat. You expected blessings, perhaps?"  
  
"Ron, this wine is foul," Seamus cut in.  
  
"Oh, shut up," said Hermione. "It has alcohol in it, what more do you want? Shall we go through?"  
  
"Come on then," said Ron.  
  
"Whose is the beer?" asked Hermione.  
  
"Um ... mine," said Ron, quickly ... covering again.  
  
Footsteps moved swiftly past the cupboard again. Harry felt a hand slowly unzipping his trousers.  
  
"... might have been ... it was just a fling," Hermione was saying.  
  
"And you have to admit ... Charlie is very sexy," said Seamus.  
  
Draco kissed Harry lightly along the line of his cheek, all the while his deft fingers going to work on the buttons of his shirt.  
  
"Come on," he whispered. "It sounds like we'll be here a long time ... you might as well enjoy it ..."  
  
Harry sighed.  
  
"That's not my point," Ron was saying. "Oh, Lord ... Hermione, this puts us all in a very tricky situation."  
  
Draco released Harry momentarily, and pulled his own T-shirt over his head. Then, in the dim light, he ran his hands down his flanks, and began to undo the leather trousers, letting them fall to the floor. Then Draco stepped forwards again ... and was just about to take Harry in his arms, when Harry noticed that they had gone very quiet outside.  
  
"Hush ... hold it a minute," he whispered.  
  
Draco did.  
  
"What are you doing to me?"  
  
"You said hold it," whispered Draco. "So I am ..."  
  
"Right," said Harry. "A little less tightly, if you please. Good ... carry on."  
  
"Fuck ... who do we know who drives a Jeep Wrangler?" asked Ron.  
  
"Why?" asked Seamus.  
  
"Because Ginny is just getting out of one outside," said Ron. "Hermione ... you'll have to hide. I'll put her off ..."  
  
There was the sound of people moving hurriedly around outside. Draco slipped his arms around Harry's abdomen, and began to work his way down his chest, planting little kisses as he went. Harry moaned, arching his back ... relishing the sensation as Draco continued his journey southwards ...  
  
The cupboard door was flung hurriedly open, and before either of them could work out what was going on, someone else had been shoved inside, knocking Draco forwards, and causing Harry to scream in pain.  
  
"Fuck!" yelled Harry. "I think you've bitten it off!"  
  
Hermione let out a frightened whimper.  
  
"It's all right," Draco said ... " it feels fine."  
  
"How can it be fine?" wailed Harry. "It's gone numb!"  
  
"Ron ..." Hermione whimpered. "Ron ... there's two guys naked in your cupboard."  
  
Draco turned to face her. Tears were pouring down Harry's face now.  
  
"Seriously ... it isn't what it looks like," he said. "We're plumbers."  
  
"Oh, shut the fuck up!" wailed Harry. "I'll never be the same again! I'm 23 and I'm a fucking castrato!"  
  
"Oh my God," whimpered Hermione. It was, thankfully, far too dark for her to see what was going on.  
  
"Thought there was going to be some kind of double dealing going on!" the voice of another woman ... presumably Ginny's. "I saw Hermione's car parked outside. Honestly, Ron! What the fuck did you let that bitch queen from hell into our house for?"  
  
"I didn't ..." Ron's earnest voice.  
  
"He always was shit at lying," said Hermione, to nobody in particular.  
  
Draco remonstrated with Harry. "You are not a castrato. You are fine. Look ... feel that."  
  
Harry sniffed. "Oh," a faint exclamation of surprise.  
  
And with that, Ginny flung the cupboard door open.  
  
END OF PART SIX.  
A/N  
  
Sorry for taking so long with this part. The extra special good news is that Part 7 is well on the way to completion ... and Part 8 will be the final bit. So, coming up in the next part of Snitch! ... more Weasleys ... everyone has a go at Ron ... Ginny has a go at everyone ... Draco has a go with Harry ... and Remus gets the wrong end of the stick.  
  
A million thanks go out to everybody who reviewed the last part. The list now runs to around a hundred ... so ... um ... here goes ... in alphabetical order too (wow)  
  
Hugs and schnoogles to ...  
  
Alan (do I detect this is the first slash story you've read ... your review sounds like it is?), alyssa g, Amber, Amy&Sheila, AngieJ, Anne, another rowan, AVK.  
  
Banance, Barb LP, Bec, Becks, Belladonna Fait, Black Goddess, Brady.  
  
C.A., Cali, Chitas no Miko, Chloe, Coqui, Crazy Slash Luv'n Chick, Crookshanks.  
  
dagan, darkangel, delentye, Dr Branford, Dreamer.  
  
elel88, Ema Lee, Emerald Rose, Erica, ex-LongLongHair (you had Bananaman in Oz? ... How weird!).  
  
firebolt 7, FringeElement.  
  
Gryffindor, Gwendolyn Grace (thanks for the con crit).  
  
heidi tandy, Hermione Malfoy, Hillary Bean.  
  
IckleRonniekins (I thought *I* was the only person who remembered Bananaman), Insane Kat.  
  
jen, julian, Julianna Priest, Juniper, Just Silver.  
  
Karina, karina305, Kathleen, Keieru, killaria, King Zoe, Kissaki, Kitten0013, kuzco.  
  
Lady Malfoy, Lady Neptune, Lana Mavi, Leah, Lizyrd, Lizzy/Tygrestick, Luckfire.  
  
Melpomene, Meriadoc, mima_w, Mina Jade, Mina, minx, Mirage, Moondragon, morgead, Moriel, Morsus, Myst, Mystery Girl.  
  
Nayia_Potter, Nimo-chan, Nora, nortylaK, nosilla.  
  
Olivia.  
  
pantalaimon (to who I bow my head in shame ... Gordon the Gopher was indeed with Philip Schofield), Phyllia, Pilot 02, princess_katrina, Prongs, purpleatheist.  
  
rave (she of the red bomber jacket), ReGina, Rhysara, Rhysenn, rinoastar, Rubicon.  
  
Saitaina, Samantha K, Sarah Jane, sea, Serafina, Sheryll, siara, Sierra, Silverfox, Sivi, Soltian, Starling, strange charm, Sweetfires, Sylph (Gangster's Paradise was in our chart over here for, like, four months ... I definitely remember it).  
  
Tanasia, Tani, Tazy Silverpen, Tessie, Truth.  
  
Viola.  
  
water-nymph, wingedkeys, Wyn, Wynster McG (Right Said Fred were an early 90's British pop group ... 'I'm Too Sexy' is one of theirs).  
  
yael  
  
Apologies to everyone who reviewed after this chapter went to beta! Thanks to you guys as well!  



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